ZEITGEIST Wanna playtest the next ZEITGEIST adventure?

[Morrus]

Death of the Author is complete and awaiting layout. You know what that means? PLAYTEST TIME!

If you would like to playtest the adventure for 3rd level D&D 5E characters, send me a PM. Some caveats:

• time's a'pressin! you need to be able to playtest it with your gaming group pretty much immediately.
• we'll need a playtest report from you, in as much detail as possible. We won't have a specific list of questions; we'll just need you to highlight what worked and what didn't.

Only 3 slots available, first-come first-served. Please don't message me unless you can start play now though, not in a month's time!

 

[reighndragon]

I'm planning to run the zeitgeist adventure path. How many spoilers are there in this adventure for my group if I'm running this for them? How much time will it take to run this adventure approximately?

 

[Morrus]

I'm planning to run the zeitgeist adventure path. How many spoilers are there in this adventure for my group if I'm running this for them? How much time will it take to run this adventure approximately?

It's set 20 years after the AP. Probably not recommended for folks planning on starting the AP!

 

[RangerWickett]

I mean, if you ran a game that was going to run from 1989 to 1992 that deals with the collapse of the Soviet Union, this adventure would be sort of like a story set at a chess tournament in Russia in 2012.

No one would be explicitly talking about the precise plot elements of the end of the Cold War, but the mere nature of the international cast would definitely spoil a few things.

 

[hirou]

I finally visited the forums kinda late... After past week of rushed deadlines I feel too burnt out to plan for my ZG campaign this weekend. I wonder if I can run this for my players without spoiling too much stuff about Eclipse. Phrases "You know yourself what your country have done!" can work, I guess. I asked my players whether they want to do this, so far there is one enthusiastic "yes", and that is at 1am Moscow time

 

[RangerWickett]

Well, I'm sure it's not something you can just grab and run Friday without prep time, but I'll shoot you an email. If after reading the intro you don't think you can use it, let me know. I think I still have your email from back in 2016 when you helped proofread one of the hardcovers.

 

[hirou]

Well, I'm sure it's not something you can just grab and run Friday without prep time, but I'll shoot you an email. If after reading the intro you don't think you can use it, let me know. I think I still have your email from back in 2016 when you helped proofread one of the hardcovers.

You should also have my e-mail from back in November, when I proofread this adventure

 

[RangerWickett]

(I thought you'd helped with that, but it wasn't showing up when I searched for you. Then I remembered that I was running out of storage space and I had deleted a bunch of email threads that had a ton of attachments. So yeah.)

I hope you like the revisions.

 

[hirou]

We had slightly less time than I expected today (and only 3 players were able to participate this time), I was able to end on a dramatic scene of Pritchard's prophecy in ~6 hours. Full disclaimer:

• I do not particularly like 5e
• I do not have much experience running 5e games, although I'm currently playing in Tomb of annihilation campaign. The slowish pace of the game can definitely be blamed on this, at least partly.

Spoiler: First impressions

• Overall I'm satisfied both with the story and structure; every different combination of hunting teams in conjunction with player hooks can produce an interesting dynamic in social play. The second half, which I've yet to run, seems a bit more straightforward, but provides a good counter-part to dialogue-heavy opening.
• We had a few minor stumbles in player generation, most of which are probably explained in the full book: expected number of players (for encounter balance; I considered adding an NPC, but I'm glad I decided against it), starting equipment (1st level packages work fine, party decided to spend some of their 3000 gp on armor; I'll try to make that bite them in the ass), languages (Primordial came into play several times during play; judging from stat-blocks it is still a language of Risur, but this is not described in the players' primer), allowed classes/races (9 tiefling variants? exotic races? satyr Danor revolutionary?!). Party settled on Risuri tiefling bard Harmonia Latimer (bonus points to player for remembering this surname before I did), dragonborn monk smuggler Ana from Malice lands and dwarven echoknight mercenary Alexiy wth split personality (all working to the glory of Arstotska of Danor). Possible problem for DM - devas in ZG seems to differ significantly from aasimars and devas in 5e. Once again, I guess they are described in the full book, but I think this adventure is supposed to be used as a standalone product?
• Adventure seems to have a good pace of introducing NPCs. I'm mildly surprised my players were able to remember and distinguish 11 different characters in a single session, getting interested at least in some of them. The smuggler happily relapsed into malice beast organs partaking after some prodding from Marlot... I connected Maurice with backstory of Harmonia (they were dating several years ago, when he suddenly died under suspicious circumstances and did not come back - another "coop mission" with Kvarti, or a similar gig), and unexpected meeting with him at a manor hundreds of miles from home provided a healthy dose of paranoia and player involvement
• Hunt... does not feel perfect. If I went by the book, my players would have to sit through up to 7 encounters (rolls of 20+11 Survival for one team, while another went straight for fishing), in which a) there is, randomly, none to mortal danger to PCs b) PCs have no particularly good reasons to go all out c) they can retreat to manor at any time if they feel threatened. In the end I had them roll 7 times on encounter tables and picked the most interesting variants, which resulted in three encounters - pack of mesmerizing deers, hippogriff nest, pack of cocatrices (which the party decided to avoid just in case) and "scripted" chull fishing session. To my surprise, chull died to Pritchard lightning and echoknight crits in two or three turns, nearly killing Budwati in the process, while other hunt setups were enjoyable but almost completely danger-less (I can't "feel" the difficulty curve of 5e encounters as I could with 4e, so I'm at a loss on what could be done here). I'd guess the main idea of this part of the adventure is to acquaint the party with the cast of NPCs/allow some Spycraft, and not to try and drain their hp/other reserves, so maybe just one memorable battle for each party plus several narrative ones can work the best here. Or maybe I just can't run 5e combats fast enough. Side-note: 5e monster stat blocks are terrible and I miss 4e after a single session.
• Minor nitpick - I love slumber pony idea, but Sleep spell doesn't have save DC, it affects creatures based on their hp total. Other CR 0 malice beasts are very cure, I'll definitely plug the invisible frog into the main campaign.
• The dinner was lively until dwarves arrived and politics/philosophy started. I'll definitely use the points outlined there in the world of the main campaign, it seems a bit lacking in part of Drakran view on things.

Please tell me if you'd prefer for the detailed descriptions to stay out of forums (or just edit out the text under spoiler tags), Morrus/Ryan. I'll send you the annotated file with minor nitpicks some time next week and hope to finish the adventure next weekend (we have 3 days of holidays here, so double-DnD session is in order). Looking forward for the full book!

 

[RangerWickett]

That is some excellent feedback! Thank you. I don't have qualms with you posting properly hidden spoilers here.

The intention about the hunt was certainly to be more of an opportunity for roleplaying punctuated by intermittent encounters with strange creatures. Aside from the chuul and the possibility of running into something truly dangerous on the rise, I figured most of the encounters would take less than 5 minutes to resolve, at least if you're playing in 'theater of the mind' in person. If you were setting up battle maps and such, I can see that it would take longer.

And yeah, 5e combat is not as fun in a 'board game tactics' way as 4e, though hopefully the Remorse and fight with the killer end up being interesting.

I'll see about filling in some of the combat stat gaps, but as for the setting information, there's a limit to what we can fit in, since the adventure is already pretty hefty. I figure it doesn't break anything if a player decides to be something weird, though maybe I could fit in a brief paragraph in the ZEITGEIST Primer suggesting common tropes.

How are the players taking to the 'spycraft' mechanics?