ZEITGEIST Starting Zeitgeist in 5e - Master thesis, Conversion and other shenanigans

[Levistej]

Hello there friendly people of Enworld,
I've been playing DnD in it's various forms for the better part of 10 years now and after reading through Pathfinders Zeitgeist module I instantly knew I wanted to run this for my players. A year has passed since then and I finally have the opportunity to run Zeitgeist in my favourite edition yet.

But it's not all fun and games. To make matters more interesting, I'm also finishing college and my Master thesis in Cultural anthropology is slowly building up on its foundations. It will most likely be a case study of the campaign itself with theoretical focus on things like game theory, phenomenology, group immersion and sport anthropology.

To spice things up a bit, I decided to add some people in this campaign who are completely new to the tabletop RPG genre and roleplaying as a concept. They're all geeky and like fantasy novels, but in my almost third world country od Croatia, DnD is a thing most people never even heard of.

Since Zeitgeist is largely roleplay and story driven, I've decided to make a Facebook page to keep track of our campaign. The page would represent the Flint Constabulary home office, and they would get various informations from there - individual and group evaluations, maps, personal in-game mail... I also aimed to introduce a mechanic of mission briefings that would consist of one player writing mission reports and summaries on a milestone basis. This practice would start with my veteran players writing these briefings at first and the newbs would get a chance of doing the same when they feel comfortable.

This would, I believe, help a lot with immersion and tracking of the campaign and the only thing that would be required of the players is to create accounts with their respective character names and to put up a briefing every 2-3 weeks.

Now comes the me asking you for help part 1: Do you think zeitgeist is too hard of a module to grasp for newbies? Do you think I'm asking too much from my players with the whole briefings thing?

part 2: Do any of you have any recommendations concerning anthropological literature that wold help me with my thesis? Any advice on which way i should guide my research (it's very open ended for now)?

Now to the mechanic side of the game. I read through the module and absolutely love both the setting and the story. I think I'm not gonna have much trouble converting things from the pathfinder version, at least not when it comes to encounters.

What I am having slight difficulities with is with the character themes. I think I'm gonna make them be backgrounds that provide some of the thematic benefits like skyseeing and talking with the dead. I've scoured the interwebs and am fairly certain I bookmarked every reference of converting Zeitgeist to 5e that I could find. Nevertheless, I would still love to be wrong and have this wonderful community hit me with things I didn't see before and could use in my campaign.

So fire away!
And yeah, sorry but English is not my first language, I'll make mistakes here and there but I think we'll be able to communicate just fine.

 

[efreund]

> Do you think zeitgeist is too hard of a module to grasp for newbies?
I think ZG is a hard module. Whether or not it is "too" hard is too difficult to tell without knowing a lot more about you and your group. I would hope that you are an experienced, seasoned GM. I would hope that you would have at least one senior D&D player in the group that can guide and mentor the newbies from the PC-side of things.
Know that they will need support. And make sure to give them the support. If you assume it will be difficult for them, and work to accommodate that, you should succeed. If you merely hope all will go well without handholding and intervention, it will most surely fail.

> Do you think I'm asking too much from my players with the whole briefings thing?
Be extremely careful of the out-of-game time commitment you ask for your players. Unless they are prolific writers/journalers already, this is probably too much to ask of them. Also, if they have busy school/jobs/family responsibilities, expect those to get in the way. Figure out how much of of their free time you think they should be spending, and be up-front with them about that, and see how they respond.

Also, bear in mind that ZG is a very long campaign. It will take many years to complete. Be prepared for that yourself, and make sure your players are prepared for that level of commitment.

 

[RangerWickett]

First, welcome and good luck. I'm Ryan Nock, the director of the ZEITGEIST adventure path.

Second, I'm exceptionally excited that the adventures we created are going to be part of your master's thesis. I don't know that I've ever seen any research literature on the anthropology of roleplaying games, but I've never really looked. The closest I can think of is that in 2005 or so I had a couple sociology students film a game session I ran because they wanted to examine the interactions and power dynamics, particularly about how each player and the GM acted as a sort of gatekeeper on how deeply in-character the group was allowed to get.

I can't really recommend any anthropological literature on RPGs, since I'm unfamiliar, but I bet if you posted in the general forum you'd find at least a few academics on EN World who could suggest something.

I work in a medical research library at Emory University in Atlanta, and so I checked the medical literature. Most of what I found was psychology and sociology related. For instance:

• Social Workers' Perceptions of the Association Between Role Playing Games and Psychopathology
• Psychiatrists' Perceptions of Role-Playing Games.
• Personalities of players of Dungeons and Dragons.
• Ethics assessment via game play?

I don't think any of those are a close fit for what you're looking for, though.

Third, as to whether the adventures are too complex for new players, I suppose it depends on your players and whether they've played, for instance, story-heavy video games like The Witcher, or if they have experience acting. People unfamiliar with RPGs will need to learn 'how to play' regardless of how involved the plot is. As a game, though, players sometimes have fun with the gameplay elements, like whether they use the right tactics to defeat a monster, while other times the fun comes from narrative elements, like influencing the world and building an interesting story.

Fun-through-gameplay is far more common - from chess to soccer to Super Mario Bros, everyone is familiar with how to have fun this way - and ZEITGEIST has a fair bit of that. Fun-through-narrative might be a less familiar concept, and ZEITGEIST is heavy on narrative. Plus, of course, players have different tastes; if your players don't like mystery stories, then in the second adventure The Dying Skyseer they might get frustrated, even if they are otherwise comfortable playing a character and fighting monsters.

But enthusiasm is contagious. If you like it, I think your friends will give it a try.

(However, ZEITGEIST also is *long*. Even playing 5e, which goes through combats faster than Pathfinder, you might want to be prepared to wrap up after adventure 2 if the group isn't into it, or adventure 5 if they like it but cannot commit to a year or more of games.)

Fourth, based on your Facebook idea, it sounds like you're looking for ways to get your group of novice players into the mindset of their characters. I know a handful of ZEITGEIST GMs had their players write journals to keep track of the campaign, and some of them are posted on the website Obsidian Portal, and at least one was here. In my own group in Atlanta, we're playing a Star Wars campaign. I have a player who writes and shares a Google Document with the group. He mostly just jots down NPC names, places, dramatic encounters, and the occasional funny comment, so it's not in-character, but it's handy for players to keep track of things in a hurry. Also it's searchable, which would be a benefit over Facebook. The timeline of FB doesn't lend itself well to looking very far back.

You might consider Discord. It lets you set up multiple feeds, so you could have an in-character and out-of-character feed. Old comments are fairly easy to search for, especially if you Pin a noteworthy comment. And it has a good smartphone app, as well as a web version. However, you cannot make the feed public like you can in Facebook. Obsidian Portal lets you make things public, but it doesn't work as well for out-of-game chatter.

Fifth, if you're looking for help on 5e conversion, check out the EN5ider Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/ensider/posts?tag=ZEITGEIST They've converted the Player's Guide and most of the first module. Depending on how fast your group plays, you'll probably go through the material faster than they can publish, but it should be a good foundation, especially for the character themes.

Let me know any way I can help.

 

[Lylandra]

That sounds like a really exciting and ambitious project.

First off, I'm no expert in cultural anthropology, but I know my fair share about sociology and use empirical methods for my own PhD thesis. I also did a small homework study on political structures in video games for a uni seminar, but that was years ago.

The first thing you should consider is time. I don't know how much time students usually spend on their MA thesis in your university, but where I come from it is roughly a year's work. Which is really not enough to play through all of Zeitgeist. My own group plays every 2nd to 3rd sunday for 6-8 hours and we're in adventure 4 after a 3/4 year. So maybe consider a point in your campaign where you officially end your research and start playing for fun only.

Then you should get a rough idea on what you want to research. Try to narrow your focus down as far as possible without losing the breadth of a case study. Do you want to study in which steps people immerse in their characters? Do you want to focus on inner-group decision making? Do you wish to focus on game/play aspects and how each player reacts to certain aspects of a roleplaying game? Do you wish to see if your players can put their own culture and assumptions aside to accept and understand a new one (and see with which aspects they may be challenged or struggle)?

Next, find a method of collecting data. As you are both GM and researcher, make sure your two roles don't conflict that much. You have to make sure that you are an authentic GM while being able to collect your data as objectively as possible. In my opinion, this almost immediately excludes observation sheets. If you want to study live behavior, you might want to record your sessions per video. Or, if you wish to study how players reflect on their characters, hand them surveys or ask them for in-character or third person reflections. Or conduct scripted interviews and record audio files.

Unfortunately, I don't think I can help you much in terms of literature. You could peek into the aspects of ludology (the game vs play aspect and whether your campaign falls more into one or the other category). You could also consult general methods of empirical social research (only got German books here for a reference, but there must be others, at least in English) for collecting and evaluating your data.
If you find it useful, here's a part of Nick Yee's old quantitative research on MMORPGs, the section on roleplaying http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/pdf/4-3.pdf . It might be quite fitting if you want to compare aspects of roleplaying, i.e. the difference between playing in character in TTRPGs and in MMORPGs, codes of conduct, motivations, etc.
Then there's this site for various (older) studies on roleplaying games: http://www.rpgstudies.net/
And the international journal for roleplaying project http://journalofroleplaying.org/


As for Zeitgeist: From a player's perspective it is more complicated that most published modules. That's mainly because there are many threads which run in parallel, yet often intertwine and because there are so many NPC. But, if your players know criminal literature or investigative movies or the like, they'll be fine. Because Zeitgeist is so story-heavy, knowing the game system isn't that vital to their survival. If you fear that they might get into trouble, you can have them first be accompanied by a senior RHC agent who can help them should the need arise. Or maybe you'll want to study how newbie players adapt to the new situation and just play more easy on them.

Otherwise, I think Zeitgeist is some pretty awesome material for your research. Because it can be quite intense and play on the full variety of human emotions. Our GM was close to tears during the second session, and so was I when we found Finona's letter in the third adventure after the "disaster de Dracon". There's also heavy political undertones where your characters could (and should) choose how to react to (matters of nature vs industry, worker's rights, social (in)justice, different systems of government based on philosophy/ideals...)

 

[gideonpepys]

My main piece of advice would be not to rely on your players to remember key details, even though they are well and truly ingrained on your memory as DM. You will have read and reread them several times, and have a visual as well as auditory memory of these NPCs, clues and events, so it may seem impossible that the players could have forgotten who someone is or how they connect to key events. But even your most dedicated players will have huge gaps in their recall. Use Stover Delft to brief and debrief regularly, begin each session with a synopsis, send out bullet-point reminders and use those NPC portraits to the full. Don't just flash them at the players, leave them out whenever a key NPC is 'on stage'.

When your players generate their PCs, link them to NPCs if you can. Check out the session reports from other DMs to see how they have achieved this. Encourage them to embrace the unique aspects of the campaign. I am very glad, for example, to have a tiefling, a deva and an eschatologist dwarf in my party because these elements are core to the campaign world. Fey connections are fun too.

I would also recommend that DMs read at least two adventures ahead so they can adequately foreshadow events, which also helps the players to understand the story.

I am a lazy DM, but this is the best campaign I have ever run and it has forced me to raise my game and plan ahead in detail. (A flowchart of events for adventure 2; an extended NPC roster for adventure 3 - all stuff I would have ordinarily winged.)

Hope you enjoy the campaign as much as we have.

 

[Levistej]

Firstly, thanks for all the great replies.
To put things in perspective I'll say we'll be having the session zero in about 2 weeks time. Any advice on that? What should I outline? What should I present to the players and what should remain hidden? I'll surely show them the maps of the continent and of Flint. Also, I'll introduce them to all the factions, schools of thought and religions while they'll get a more precise description of each if it mingles well with their backstory or character idea/theme.

To keep things simpler I decided I would allow only certain classes and races although it is not necessarily canon. The races allowed would be Humans, Elves, Eladrin, Aasimar(Devas), Half-orcs, Half-elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, Dragonborn, Changelings, Minotaurs, Goblins and Goliaths. If someone really wants to play a Tiefling, I'll allow it, but I am not a fan of the race in general and specifically in this campaign, at least as a PC option.

Considering classes I intend to ban Warlocks cause I know my party doesn't like short rests and in game there are quite a few reasons why powerful beings from outer planes couldn't really have much influence on the world. I'm also planning to add the Artificer, Gunslinger and Pugilist(Sterling vermin) classes to the fold since they fit so well with the setting.

Now concerning your feedback.
In terms of the structure and approach of the "scientific" part of my project, I have mostly everything spread out in my head. We Anthropologist don't really like quantitative analysis so mostly everything will be done through semistructured interviews. I'll be sure to ask for some advice on reddit and enworlds general forum when the time comes.

The more I think about it, I think you are right and I shouldn't demand too much from my players concerning briefings and the like. It will be encouraged but as we always tend to have recaps before our game night starts, I don't think it will be a necessity. Also, I'll go heavy on handouts and had the idea of making a large corkscrew board(I'm sure there's a name for this) for them to use as an impromptu whodunit tool like its often seen in cop shows on TV.

The party will probably consist of 5-6 players. Only 1 or 2 will be noobs, the rest are all seasoned D&D veterans with 10+ years of roleplaying experience. I now their preferences - each and every one of them prefers less combat and more investigation, subterfuge and roleplaying in their games. Two of them already know what they will play.
The most vocal of the group will most likely play a human Inquisitive Rogue, a somewhat shady inspector who doesn't mind bending the law to get things done. The other already decided upon character will be a Human tech savvy Artificer of yet undecided specialization.


Now concerning the En5ider conversion of zeitgeist...To start of, I'm totally unfamiliar with patreon and how it works and to add to that, I don't own a credit card or any other mean of paying the subscription. I know it's the electronic age, but as I live on a small income I just refuse to commit my self in that way until I have a steady job. If you lived in Croatia, you would probably understand.
Keeping that in mind, the monthly fee required to obtain everything regarding Zeitgeist (2$/m right?) is more than fair. If a friend of mine signed up and downloaded all the resources I need, could he send them to me or are they protected in some way?

Lastly, I know Zeitgeist is a huge campaign that will take years to finish. I have over a year to do my Thesis and I really don't need to tie up the whole module. I'll probably have more than enough material to work with in the first few months. Moreover, the completion of my thesis isn't a reason to stop playing, I love the sourcebook and if the players share my enthusiasm in a years time, I don't see a reason for the Flint Constabulary to stop its adventures.

 

[Levistej]

Oh and, I wanted to ask something specific but forgot. Anyone have a tune that I could use as the Risuri anthem on the Coaltongue?

 

[RangerWickett]

I'm pretty sure there's no DRM (digital rights management) on the Patreon 5e conversion material. It's just PDFs.

As for a national anthem, I don't recall what I used. I trawled YouTube for a few hours listening to tons of countries' anthems. I feel like I ended up getting something like Brazil's, not European.

 

[Levistej]

Oh well, I'll try to get some rather unknown anthem, should work as long as it's got some tempo.
Edit: Nope, gonna use Tchaikovskys "Overture 1812", it has cannons in it, if a song has cannons in the composition, it's bound to be great for dramatic effect

Anyway, my party is starting to come along, we currently have the following, all human:
Dr. Isobel Hastings, Artificer and Alchemist
Officer Julius "J" Tenpenny, Inquisitive Rogue
and a yet unnamed Monk of the shadow variety

I plan to talk them through the backgrounds/themes during session zero, really hope I'll hook someone with the Skyseer imagery

Concerning Patreon and the official conversion it basically boils down to "subscribing" to en5ider for a fixed and getting access to the module/adventures, right? Or is the payment tied to a particular author/individual adventure part?

 

[Tormyr]

Concerning Patreon and the official conversion it basically boils down to "subscribing" to en5ider for a fixed and getting access to the module/adventures, right? Or is the payment tied to a particular author/individual adventure part?

There are two parts to the EN5ider patreon. You decide:
* How much you want to spend per article that is published.
* How much is the maximum you are willing to spend per month.

At that point, if you are at the $3/article level, you pretty much get everything, and you can limit how much you are charged per month.