doppelganger
Explorer
RangerWickett in another thread said:
Using the benefit of hindsight, what sort of things do you think could be stripped from the WotBS adventures?
What is unnecessary in the adventures?
- Thread starter doppelganger
- Start date
Using the benefit of hindsight, what sort of things do you think could be stripped from the WotBS adventures?
RangerWickett
Legend
Hm. Let's see.
Mostly I'd trim out some of the random encounters in the earlier adventures, or make it clearer that they're intended for flavor, and aren't critical to the narrative. After seeing so many play by posts where the games just died because the GM decided he needed to run all those little encounters in Act One of the first adventure, I'd really play up how optional they are, and how they could take place at different times throughout the adventure, rather than all at once.
Later on I focused more putting only fun, interesting stuff in, rather than "Here's a monster, kill it so you can get the requisite XP for the next adventure." Basically I'd encourage more story-based XP rewards so even if the PCs don't fight enough stuff, they still level at the rate the adventures expect.
Oh, and in The Indomitable Fire Forest of Innenotdar, I might get rid of the road, and let the PCs roam more, though still have Indomitability block their way with monsters if they try to leave. It would make it feel less railroady.
I'm pretty happy with how things turned out from adventure 6 on, though there is certainly a lot you could cut out for expediencies sake without ruining the plots. Like, it's not necessary to have a half-air elemental minotaur in a room full of monsters in vats, but I think it's a cool encounter.
Mostly I'd trim out some of the random encounters in the earlier adventures, or make it clearer that they're intended for flavor, and aren't critical to the narrative. After seeing so many play by posts where the games just died because the GM decided he needed to run all those little encounters in Act One of the first adventure, I'd really play up how optional they are, and how they could take place at different times throughout the adventure, rather than all at once.
Later on I focused more putting only fun, interesting stuff in, rather than "Here's a monster, kill it so you can get the requisite XP for the next adventure." Basically I'd encourage more story-based XP rewards so even if the PCs don't fight enough stuff, they still level at the rate the adventures expect.
Oh, and in The Indomitable Fire Forest of Innenotdar, I might get rid of the road, and let the PCs roam more, though still have Indomitability block their way with monsters if they try to leave. It would make it feel less railroady.
I'm pretty happy with how things turned out from adventure 6 on, though there is certainly a lot you could cut out for expediencies sake without ruining the plots. Like, it's not necessary to have a half-air elemental minotaur in a room full of monsters in vats, but I think it's a cool encounter.
doppelganger
Explorer
Thank you for your response, Ryan. It is very helpful. I've purchased a handful of adventures and I plan on getting the rest later today.
I left out Torrent, and had one the PCs be a member of the resistance.
With hindsight, I should have left in her wand of cure light wounds!
In the fire forest, nothing really happens until the PCs reach the village (apart from the encounters with the devil, but those can occur anywhere). I think it also causes the perceived railroad problem - some players, in my view unfairly, think "We just get to march along the road and the DM runs through his list of random encounters". [I say unfairly because lots of D&D is like that, if the players only realised it
]
The trek upstream is a bit like that as well.
I think it would have been better if the Fire Forest was cut down a bit (pun not intentional) and then Act 1 of Shelter from the Storm could have been included as the last part of the second adventure instead of being part 1 of the third.
The second act of shelter from the storm has lots of optional encounters that happen if the PCs visit specific locations. You could leave them out, but in fact they were one of the parts my party enjoyed the most.
You could leave out the events on the way to Bresk in Mad King's Banquet. A remorhaz is a cool monster, but its appearance in southern Dassen was a real "what the heck is that doing here?" moment for my group, and I found the hanged man / halfling convoy thing a bit hard to follow.
The "destroy the catapults" scene in Mad King's Banquet was very tedious and I'll never run it again, but that's probably my fault as the DM for running a big set piece battle very badly. Its even put my story hour on hiatus, as I can't face writing it up. Expect the eventual write up of those two sessions to be about a paragraph long!
EDIT - after re-reading the above, I think I should point out that everyone in my group, myself included, is really enjoying War of the Burning Sky, most of which is excellent, and overall this has been one of the mosts enjoyable campaigns I've ever run!
With hindsight, I should have left in her wand of cure light wounds!
In the fire forest, nothing really happens until the PCs reach the village (apart from the encounters with the devil, but those can occur anywhere). I think it also causes the perceived railroad problem - some players, in my view unfairly, think "We just get to march along the road and the DM runs through his list of random encounters". [I say unfairly because lots of D&D is like that, if the players only realised it
]The trek upstream is a bit like that as well.
I think it would have been better if the Fire Forest was cut down a bit (pun not intentional) and then Act 1 of Shelter from the Storm could have been included as the last part of the second adventure instead of being part 1 of the third.
The second act of shelter from the storm has lots of optional encounters that happen if the PCs visit specific locations. You could leave them out, but in fact they were one of the parts my party enjoyed the most.
You could leave out the events on the way to Bresk in Mad King's Banquet. A remorhaz is a cool monster, but its appearance in southern Dassen was a real "what the heck is that doing here?" moment for my group, and I found the hanged man / halfling convoy thing a bit hard to follow.
The "destroy the catapults" scene in Mad King's Banquet was very tedious and I'll never run it again, but that's probably my fault as the DM for running a big set piece battle very badly. Its even put my story hour on hiatus, as I can't face writing it up. Expect the eventual write up of those two sessions to be about a paragraph long!
EDIT - after re-reading the above, I think I should point out that everyone in my group, myself included, is really enjoying War of the Burning Sky, most of which is excellent, and overall this has been one of the mosts enjoyable campaigns I've ever run!
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I'd do the exact opposite!RangerWickett said:
I'd leave the road in, since its an important part of the wider story - a route to Gate Pass which is not currently open to the Ragesians.
Instead I'd follow your suggestion ages ago of emphasising to the players that the characters don't have to follow the road if they don't want to.
I'd also have Indomitability send some forces against the PCs to stop them leaving, but if they defeat those and really want to exit the forest I'd have Indomitability write them off as a bad job and let them go.
Zinovia
Explorer
I'm tempted to leave Torrent out as well. She sticks with the group quite a long time otherwise, and it sounds like there are plenty of NPC's hanging around with the party in later adventures. What are you supposed to do with some of those people while you are off fighting baddies? I read a story hour report on the second module which had included a session entitled, "Let's leave the girl with the trolls". 
As far as starting off the adventure goes, the character who is part of the resistance can be provided with information that Torrent would have known. Ties to other prominent NPC's and to the city of Gate Pass should be spread around among the PC's. I'd like for everyone to have some investment in the story line and to care about the outcome.
I'll have to read the modules more to decide what else to keep and what to gloss over or leave out entirely. I still think WotBS would work well at least for the first part of a campaign. My players are interested in social encounters and interesting plots. Some of the other products out there are nothing but dungeon crawls, which gets old after a bit. We may cut WotBS short before getting into serious war stuff though. I'm not sure they'd enjoy running big battles.
I'll have to see how much conversion I'll need to do if we go with 4E. I've enjoyed reading the modules to date. I read the first and third pretty fully, and glanced through the second.
As far as starting off the adventure goes, the character who is part of the resistance can be provided with information that Torrent would have known. Ties to other prominent NPC's and to the city of Gate Pass should be spread around among the PC's. I'd like for everyone to have some investment in the story line and to care about the outcome.
I'll have to read the modules more to decide what else to keep and what to gloss over or leave out entirely. I still think WotBS would work well at least for the first part of a campaign. My players are interested in social encounters and interesting plots. Some of the other products out there are nothing but dungeon crawls, which gets old after a bit. We may cut WotBS short before getting into serious war stuff though. I'm not sure they'd enjoy running big battles.
I'll have to see how much conversion I'll need to do if we go with 4E. I've enjoyed reading the modules to date. I read the first and third pretty fully, and glanced through the second.
