WotBS Your WotBS: How Did YOur Group Surprise You?

[Fox Lee]

However, there's no Lyre of Building that I recall in the 3E version, much less an entire subplot around it, and I have no idea what the Aquilla is.

It's a sunken temple which I assume is part of the previous civilisation whose ruins remain around Seaquen - in practicality it's a way to get hints about the Aquiline Heart, and in my game I used it to dispense info a bout the Torch too (because I put myself in the difficult position of the Torch not being a previously-known artefact, and therefore had to work out how to tell the PC about it it without just having somebody say "go find this previously unknown macguffin"!).

It's also interesting how different two groups' takes on an adventure like this can be - "totally ignored the Wayfarers" is the furthest thing possible from what my group did! They ignored most of the city stuff in the middle - basically, everything you can do in Seaquen that isn't Wayfarers-related and/or absolutely essential to the main plot, they displayed no interest in whatsoever. At one point they complained that those parts didn't give them any obvious hooks half an hour after I explicitly listed six of them, which is the point where I gave up on that stuff and skipped straight to the war council. In fact Laurabec's final scene at the end had zero impact because they'd forgotten who she was despite meeting her on two separate occasions.

Very true! I wasn't expecting it to turn out like it did at all. My group didn't pay a huge amount of attention a lot of the leads, actually; they turned in the Dianoem and went to hunt spiders quite readily, but I couldn't really get them to socialise or look around town to find out what was happening - for some reason they were nowhere near as curious or proactive as they normally are. I mostly used their cohorts to hook them into stuff - like I had Faolan (Crystin) become friends with - and slightly dependent on - Laurabec, in the absence of her father (who was the heroes' prisoner until he escaped during the Witches' Isle fight, to take up the role he's supposed to have in the Biomancy plot).

I managed to get one player to do a Wayfarer audition, of sorts, in that he used his History skill to give them an incredibly long-winded speech about the inaccuracies and overblown artistic license in their production. This not not exactly make them want to hire him, but in the end one of the writers chased him up to beg him to join as a consultant. He kind of left it at that, though - he's my "spectator player", so really I was lucky I even got the initial interest out of him ^^;

They did take a lot of interest in the elf/eladrin princess though, partially because they made an ally of Shealis, who returned as part of the princess's retinue. At the moment they're conspiring with Shealis to formulate a plan where the princess (in this case an imperious brat named Aviela, not honourable nice girl Shalosha) thinks she is in charge of the Alliance forces, while keeping her from having any real authority. This is actually great for me, since I added several in eladrin nobles with comparable claims to succession, all of whom are trying to find the Torch (or a comparable artefact) in order to secure the throne (one of them is replacing Onamdammin as Pilus' ally, since I have no country comparable to Ostalin). It should be easier to bring that conflict to the fore, since that's the biggest thread they chose to invest in

Their latest entry into that category, in the fourth adventure - accepting the mission to assassinate Kelkin, but instead of fighting him, persuading him to sit the battle out and prepare for the real enemy, Ragesia. It's a very obvious approach when you think about it, especially given his links to Gabal and distrust of "Nina", but for some reason neither the adventure writer nor I contemplated any possibility of that encounter being something other than a battle.

Hmmm, that's an interesting thought! I should prepare for that possibility too, since my guys will probably try to talk down anybody I don't make gibberingly evil