WotBS WotBS critiques for Zeitgeist planning?

[pneumatik]

But yeah, it's kind of like having the PCs be spies in World War 2, and trying to find a way to let them experience Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s, or the Russian revolution in 1917. Those are interesting stories, but a little out of our scope.

In ZEITGEIST, though, the party does get acquainted with some movers and shakers from the very first scene.

It's not so much about being with the movers and shakers, it's having good, interesting, complex stories from the past that influence current events. I expect at the end of the campaign to explain the Fire Forest and Coaltongue and Leska's adventures because those stories played a major role in the adventures they played through but the players never learned them. I just hate ending campaigns with OOC explanations of what really happened.

 

[RangerWickett]

Hm. I figure if PCs cared, they could ask Timbre, Gwenvere, or any of the Seelae about Anyariel, or ask Etinifi (or hell, Coaltongue if they get him back) about Leska.

 

[KidSnide]

Hm. I figure if PCs cared, they could ask Timbre, Gwenvere, or any of the Seelae about Anyariel, or ask Etinifi (or hell, Coaltongue if they get him back) about Leska.

I think that's the wrong way of going about it. WotBS (and I presume Zeitgeist) are the only 4e adventure paths that are about interesting story. You've got to assume that the PCs care. If the PCs don't care, they're in the wrong adventure.

Sure, there should be mystery about the back story -- part of the fun is in piecing things together. But there should be an expected method (better still: more than one) for the PCs to learn any of the story that turns out to be really interesting.

I don't want to take away from the fact that the story of the campaign is the PC's story - not the NPC's story that went before. (That's very important.) But the context of the adventure path should be interesting enough that the PCs want to get to the bottom of it, and the adventure path should made it possible for the PCs to figure it out. If the PCs don't care, it's easy to cut. But - if the PCs do care - it's surprisingly hard to write in.

As GMs, we're reading the campaign. Likely, we're reading the modules on short notice and without the chance to fully master each module before we start. Even if I do fully understand the backstory, it's hard to figure out how to bring it out without spoiling important mysteries. When to reveal the backstory is a critical part of how to run a module and I'd like guidance for that from the author.

-KS

 

[KidSnide]

One more thing I wanted to add:

None of these comments are very important for a good-to-great GM who has had plenty of time to prepare the adventure. WotBS is a very good adventure path, and such a GM will run a terrific table. Of course, a well-prepared good-to-great GM can make practically anything fun.

The makings of a good module come into play when an average GM (or an ill-prepared good GM) picks it up. The more time I spend prepping Shelter, the more I think that 95% of the information I need is in there. It's just hard to get a handle on it all. So the more you make the Zeitgeist modules easy to run without compromising the underlying complexity that made WotBS great, the stronger the campaign will be.

To take an example from WotBS, a 1-2 page campaign synopsis is very helpful. When I'm first looking at the campaign, I need to get a hold of things at a high level. But it would also be helpful to have a 10-20 page synopsis that explains how the various adventures connect. It would be equally helpful to have a list of the 15-30 most important NPCs along with the role they play during the campaign. That way, when such an NPC shows up, the GM knows they are important and what role they play in subsequent adventures.

-KS

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

"Must spread XP before giving to KidSnide...."

I hope that this thread will end up being as valuable as I intended. I think it shows there are a lot of customers that are pasionate about the EN World Adventure Paths!

 

[Zinovia]

I expect at the end of the campaign to explain the Fire Forest and Coaltongue and Leska's adventures because those stories played a major role in the adventures they played through but the players never learned them.

While they are inside Castle Korstul the characters in my game will experience a vision of events that happened the night of Coaltongue's assassination. It will play out as a vignette, with each of the characters taking the part of Coaltongue's guards. They will have a chance to talk to him and learn more of the background and what happened that night. This idea was inspired by the great prologue from the 4E Campaign Guide. I wanted to get this material out of the DM background information and into the hands of the players.

Modules all too often fail to provide a means for the players to learn the backstory, even if the information is written up for the GM. An example of this is Kalarel in Keep on the Shadowfell. The DM knows who he is and what he's up to. The characters in the game have no way to learn any of that. They meet him for the first time in the climactic finale. WotBS is much better about this, but there is room for improvement. The story of Coaltongue and Leska would go unheard by the players without some intervention by the DM.

The stories are why we are playing this series rather than a dungeon crawl. Make it easier to get the meat of the story out where the players can experience it. This can be a Deckard Cain (Diablo game) type figure who tells them a story of the past, ancient documents or a journal they discover. It could be visions of events from long ago or far away, as you have in adventure 7. It is important to make sure the players learn the story, otherwise why have it? That's what we're here for.

• Clear plot overview for the GM
• Updates on how the story has progressed with each module
• 1-2 page outline of the events of each module so the DM has a clear understanding of what is happening and any major story objectives the group is expected to achieve.
• How NPC's are tied to the story and the consequences of removing or changing them
• Clear timeline of major historical events for DM reference
• Dramatis Personae of important NPC's
• Vignettes, visions, books, storytellers, or other means of communicating backstory to players. The Conveniently Relevant News Channel works for more modern games.
• Suggestions for when the players go off the rails detailing which events to keep for story purposes and foreshadowing and which can be discarded if the PC's refuse to do what the module expects them to (which always happens). An outline covers a lot of this, and WotBS already includes some suggestions along these lines.

WotBS is an epic adventure with a complex story. We have enjoyed playing it, and would like to see your future adventure paths be even better.

 

[bert1000]

Things to keep:

1) complex, interesting story

2) variety of types of scenarios -- city, wilderness, political, involved in large scale battle, etc.

3) notes for how to adapt the adventures if PCs take a different path (e.g., don’t ally with X, Y kingdom falls)



Things to improve:

1) please keep skill challenges (SC) but only use them when the outcome is important story wise and you are ok with the PCs failing. This is my biggest pet peeve of published skill challenges. The implementation of SC, I can do on my own (I personally use Obsidian), but setting up high enough stakes in relation to the story is the tough part. Do not have consequences like losing healing surges or slightly tougher combat as outcomes. For example, the wilderness trekking SC in WoTBS had low stakes outcomes like these. An example of much more exciting stakes is a situation where you have to navigate the wilderness quickly using a difficult shortcut path in order to get to a village before enemies overrun it. If you succeed, you get to participate in the battle and likely save the village. If you fail the SC, the village gets pillaged, people you met before die, and this has consequences going forward. Don’t be afraid to have real story consequences for failure (story consequences that hurt for the PCs/players, but don’t stop the action). The Star Wars Saga SC example in Galaxy of Intrigue is another good example of this. The stakes are getting away with your fellow prisoners or those NPC prisoners getting recaptured. If the PCs have befriended some of these prisoners, this is an outcome they care about. And failure hurts, but also opens up interesting story possibilities – maybe one of the recaptured prisoners holds a grudge and blames the PCs for leaving them behind. They can show up later in the campaign…

2) Be bold in combat encounter pacing! Don’t be a slave to the “official” rules of XP, encounters per level, etc. Avoid filler encounters. So how about this -- double the XP per combat encounter and have 1/2 as many quality combats per level with more non-combat action in between (exploration, skill challenges, general role-playing). BUT also actually include in the adventures at least as many combat encounters per level as is standard (10?) with the explicit intention that PCs will make choices and only play though about 1/2 of the combat encounters included. This would give you flexibility to really open up the choices for players. I also like no more than 3 combat encounters in one location. Of course, spice it up a little by varying this formula.

3) Find ways to impart juicy background information in-story to PCs/players. This is another pet peeve of mine with published adventures. Often there is amazingly detailed backgrounds of NPCs, plots, histories, motivations, etc. but no easy way to impart this information in-story to PCs/players. Think about interesting ways to do this without resorting to finding notes and diaries on every foe (ala Pool of Radiance gold box).

4) if you are going to include a bunch of different paths/choices the PCs could go down like noted in #2 above, include flow charts of how the action could unfold

Keep up the great work, and look forward to the new Path!