Witchfire trilogy question

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I've only played the series, and havent read the books, but I thought it was pretty enjoyable. Our DM had us run an adventure or two prior to it starting where we became friends with Alexia, so throughout most of the adventure we were siding with her. He set it up as though she was more confused or slightly posessed by vengeful spirits, and the undead really only targeted Van Oberon's men in the attack on the city, so we were still on decent terms after the end of the battle. Also, I think she was lower level than the others, so we had to assist her in taking out Van Oberon or Borloss or whatever the guy's name was in the end (the sword/undead wouldnt rest until they got their revenge).

Again, not sure how much our DM changed, but it was a pretty good series of adventures that didnt feel like much was forced.

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

Hi-

One of the gal's in my old group ran this campaign, and it was alot of fun, I personally did not feel I was railroaded, nor do I think any of my fellow players felt that way too. Of course I never read the module, so I have no Idea if she ran straight from the book or modified it for our group.


Scott

 

[nyrfherdr]

A couple of things:

1. The 'railroad' nature of the adventure is as heavy or light handed as you want it to be. The adventure can be handled easily with or without it, no matter how much experience a DM has. Even if Alexia dies, you have options to pursue within the context of the adventure. While it is not for everyone, it does have excellent components, and a few not so excellent. I like to focus on the good parts and compensate for the weak ones. In other words, I happen to like the trilogy.

2. Thralls were invented because a "Necromancer" is limited in the number of undead they can control by the rules of D&D. This would limit the number of skeletons or zombies Alexia could control. There is no limit to the number of Thralls she can create (given time, xp, etc.) This is a mechanical answer that also adds flavor to the IK world.

3. Player choice is completely in the control of the DM. It is always an illusion. Because the Witchfire trilogy has a very strong story element, the illusion is thinner than in other cases.

Would a simple event-based trilogy been a better window into the Iron Kingdoms, quite probably?
I like the fact that there are different opinions about it. If everyone said "It's great! Buy it!" and you didn't like it, you'd really wonder about all those opinions. You will need to browse through it to make up your mind on it.

To all: I appreciate your opinion and understand it. And I appreciate that the trilogy is not for everyone.

Game ON!
Nyrfherdr

 

[Banshee16]

And when they see the mechanical arm, they won't think they had a meaningful effect on the major villain because they can see the bottom line: there really is no net effect. She had a flesh arm, now she has a mechanical arm. If they chop that off, maybe she'll get a crystal arm. Mox nix.



Well, it's certainly worth noting that some players can have a wonderful time even when they're being railroaded and they know it.

Well, the alternative is to purchase the modules, have the players get one lucky role against an NPC who is a major part of the plot, and end up causing the rest of the adventure to be trashed.

I actually tend to agree that a certain amount of railroading is necessary. I've had it happen several times that I spend 6 hours preparing an adventure, the players do something unexpected, or luck out or whatever, especially early on, and the DM basically gets to crumple the adventure up, throw it out, and ad-lib for the next several hours.

That's no fun for the DM either....and if the DM isn't having fun, the players won't either. So a bit of railroading isn't necessarily a problem. I actually dislike the current WotC mantra that everything's about bashing in doors and stealing treasures, and that you have to have a fully detailed adventure location for every place the characters go. Because that in itself is railroading.....it's just doing it in a different way. I actually prefer that there's a good story/plot to an adventure. A reason why things are going on. Too often these are quite contrived, and very poorly organized. And yes, within the adventure location the DM has everything detailed, so the PCs can do whatever they want within the rules. But modules still depend on railroading to make sure that PCs go from fully detailed dungeon A to fully detailed dungeon B.

I haven't run the Witchfire Trilogy modules yet, but I do have them. I thought of getting the compendium, but I'm not honestly sure how much extra I'm getting for purchasing it, so I held off. The story actually seemed pretty cool.

Having just completed Dead Gods with my players, I can say that it has a fair amount of railroading, yet it was written by Monte Cook, right? The players still had fun. It was my job as DM to use it as a guideline, adlib where necessary, and give them the sandbox to play in.....and not necessarily have every 5' square mapped out for what's in it. As a group, everyone had a great time playing it.

Banshee

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I played in it, and I know our DM (Sir Brennen on these boards) did a fair amount to avoid the railroad-y aspects. I enjoyed it. When the big fight between Alexia and the Wizard happened, they were so surrounded by undead that we had a hard time getting through. As it happens, I crit'ed Alexia with a cannonball, anyway...

A skilled DM can take a railroad, and make it seem totally natural. This depends of course on the players involved - there's always a caveat there.

The modules had some wierdness to them in terms of some mechanical issues (saying a guard had an X % chance of hearing something rather than putting it in Listen DC's, etc). I have the compilation/update, but haven't gone through it to see what changes appear to have been made - it might be tough for me to tell since I played through the originals, never read them.

 

[Thomas Percy]

Everytime there is deus-ex-machina solution in the adventure, a DM can simply ignore it and finish an adventure immediately according to the players choice. The showdown of part 1 is a classic example.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

A couple of things:

1. The 'railroad' nature of the adventure is as heavy or light handed as you want it to be. The adventure can be handled easily with or without it, no matter how much experience a DM has. Even if Alexia dies, you have options to pursue within the context of the adventure. While it is not for everyone, it does have excellent components, and a few not so excellent. I like to focus on the good parts and compensate for the weak ones. In other words, I happen to like the trilogy.

However, as written, the railroad aspect at the end of each adventure is very noticeable. I also rather like the series, but had to change so very much of it, sometimes on the fly. (I hate doing things off the cuff, I prefer plotting and scheming...) Some of this can be handled by Contingency spells for those characters that need to survive for the story to continue. *SPOILER*

Spoiler

If Oberon goes down to 0 HP then having him be teleported away makes sense, or did before they decided to make Teleport spells so bleeding dangerous in the Iron Kingdoms. And it was a PC that took him down to it, rather than Miss Cianor.

2. Thralls were invented because a "Necromancer" is limited in the number of undead they can control by the rules of D&D. This would limit the number of skeletons or zombies Alexia could control. There is no limit to the number of Thralls she can create (given time, xp, etc.) This is a mechanical answer that also adds flavor to the IK world.

I really, really like Thralls. They need a little more fleshing out creation ruleswise, hopefully it will be in the eventual arcane supplement for the IK. The fact that villainous NPCs cannot have hordes of undead in D&D is one of my few real problems... and Mongoose Publishing has had a few good fixes for that as well.

3. Player choice is completely in the control of the DM. It is always an illusion. Because the Witchfire trilogy has a very strong story element, the illusion is thinner than in other cases.

And this I disagree with quite strongly, it is not an illusion to give the players free will. For that matter The Witchfire Trilogy is not the worst I have seen in this regard, one of the White Wolf adventures for the Year of the Reckoning was absolutely horrible, dragging the PCs from scene to scene with no ability to influence events or even jump off of the railroad.

Would a simple event-based trilogy been a better window into the Iron Kingdoms, quite probably?

That was what I essentially had to do. While I liked the basic plot I had to do a fair amount of work to get it to work in my game.

I like the fact that there are different opinions about it. If everyone said "It's great! Buy it!" and you didn't like it, you'd really wonder about all those opinions. You will need to browse through it to make up your mind on it.

To all: I appreciate your opinion and understand it. And I appreciate that the trilogy is not for everyone.

Game ON!
Nyrfherdr

As I said, I like the adventures, but they need a lot of work, in my opinion they are worth it, but they do need that work. And I really, really like the Iron Kingdoms. I have always been a bit steam happy. I have just put my Iron Kingdoms game on skids for a couple of months, so I can get some work done for my summer job, but fully intend to pick it back up again later.

The Auld Grump

 

[Felon]

3. Player choice is completely in the control of the DM. It is always an illusion.

If we're at the point where the DM is sitting by himself talking to some pieces of paper arranged around the table in front of empty chairs, this is true. Once other human beings come into the mix, it becomes thoroughly flawed.

I've seen DM's attempt to hand out invisible scripts, and I've seen some players accept them willingly. How utterly contrary to the very precepts of a role-playing game. Might as well be playing rummy.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

If the point where the DM is sitting by himself talking to some pieces of paper arranged around the table in front of empty chairs, this is true. Once other human beings come into the mix, it becomes thoroughly flawed.

I've seen DM's attempt to hand out invisible scripts, and I've seen some players accept them willingly. How utterly contrary to the very precepts of a role-playing game. Might as well be playing rummy.

Rummy, huh?

At the very least I'd thing we "might as well be playing warhammer," no?

Of course, I'm tragically not privy to 'the very precepts of a role-playing game.' Where were those written again, and do they apply to everything from Fudge to Dogs in the Vineyard to D&D to HERO? Who wrote them, and who enforces them?

Or are they merely another way of swining the 'badwrongfun' stick on those who don't agree with your playstyle?

 

[Felon]

Of course, I'm tragically not privy to 'the very precepts of a role-playing game.' Where were those written again

Sorry to deflate your attempt at sarcasm, but by definition a precept is implicit, not explicit--a general principle, rather than something that's written down.

Or are they merely another way of swining the 'badwrongfun' stick on those who don't agree with your playstyle?

I was stating something pretty straightforward, despite your attempt to equivocate with this "your playstyle" bit. Once a DM hands a player a script, and starts regarding any attempt to ad lib as a rebellion that must be quashed, he's pretty much neutered the one thing that separates PnP role-playing from any other pasttime: the ability to improvise, to do anything a character in that situation could conceivably do.

As I stated previously, people can have fun with a railroaded adventure, although I certainly do believe they're missing out on a lot more fun by suppressing spontanaeity--particularly the DM. Players can do some pretty creative and surprising things. Why scupper that?