NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6111328" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>In the original 'Centipede' scenario, this is the way the module is actually written.  You don't appear at a random spot.  You appear where X marks the spot, 110 miles from your first presumed destination.  It's also worth noting that while I do think the scenario as written is weak (played strictly to text the group will average 20+ random encounters over the course of their travels, which suggests either slog or from some other hints in the text that the players are expected to devise short cuts at some point), there is actually a dramatic narrative purpose to the random encounters.  The players have a capable guide, who cannot participate in the three main challenges the PC have to face, but who will willingly aid the players against wandering encounters.   I won't go too heavily into spoilers, but the players are meant to build a relationship with the guide and the best way to do that IME is have the NPC be truly helpful.  Players rarely respect an NPC that can't pull his own weight and provide resources, and if you give the NPC no scene in which to provide those resources many latter events in the main story - the party that Hussar presumably cares about and is hurrying toward - don't actually and literally challenge player beliefs as strongly as they are intended to.   Now, I'm not saying 20 random uninteresting encounters is the best way to achieve that, but I can see how the writer may have thought having an NPC fight alongside you for days and overcome real difficulties would have built the relationship in important ways.</p></blockquote><p></p>

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