Zad/Wizardru's Story Hour (*final update 11/12*)

[Argent Silvermage]

That was just a great fight.
Meltorannan and his giant Gavel was just hysterical.

Now if I just had some time to create!

 

[WizarDru]

I'm a bit boggled by this part of the story arc. Not what we experienced - that was great. No, I'm boggled by the Module As Written. (MAW)

I should clarify. In the MAW, there is NO demonic invasion. The siege of Redgorge involves Skelerang's forces, and it all takes place off-camera. Nabbie's assualt on Redgorge is a 'could happen' given a small amount of lip-service, but otherwise isn't really dealt with other than some 'further developments could include' sequence from Demonskar Legacy.

The main problem I've found with Shackled City is that the modules feel disjointed and somewhat uneven. 'Smoking Eye' is weak. It expects the DM to work around it's flmsy justification for a motivator, fails to really develop any ideas beyond the core quest and really falls flat.

I think one thing that the SC would really benefit from is a 'NPC path and motivation' summary for some of the key players. I've had to figure some of that out and backfill some of it, myself. If the players hadn't met Sir Alek prior to Demonskar, they'd be much less likely to care about him or some of the other people, like Tygot or Skellerang.

I expect that I'm going to be jumping the rails from the SCAP more and more, as my reading ahead has shown that some of the things I find least appealing about the concept of an adventure path looms in the future. It looks a little too drawn out for my tastes, with more combats than are needed or interesting in some places, and characters being sorely underused in others.

I think you can judge how Zad condensed the prior two sessions into one brief tale versus the most recent session report being longer than both of them combined which session was more interesting for the players and felt more like the players were living in it.

 

[Zad]

The siege of Redgorge involves Skelerang's forces, and it all takes place off-camera.

That's worse. The idea that the PCs wouldn't want to intervene in something like that is just plain silly and one I can't believe the writers made. I'm not saying we *would* but it was easily possible. (Ok, I would think we would have, given Maris' family in Redgorge, but even absent that I can see a lot of PCs wanting a piece of that action in some way.)

 

[WizarDru]

That's worse. The idea that the PCs wouldn't want to intervene in something like that is just plain silly and one I can't believe the writers made. I'm not saying we *would* but it was easily possible. (Ok, I would think we would have, given Maris' family in Redgorge, but even absent that I can see a lot of PCs wanting a piece of that action in some way.)

In fairness to the authors, they often point out that the players can run these developments, but don't really do more than suggest them, not flesh them out. Part of this comes from the 'module' idea...by not wanting to force an individual DM down a path, they suggest developments outside of the scope of the module, but don't pursue them. This makes the module more generic, but that often doesn't serve my individual needs. The more I read about the SCAP, the more I see how people started customizing it to fill in the gaps. My only disappointment is that the authors were too faithful to the original dungeon articles.

That is to say, the book could have condensed two of the later modules into one and then expanded on some of the things like the Demonskar Ball and Siege of Redgorge, which are obvious set pieces that could use some expansion and then offer things like a timeline and more indepth suggestions as to how to integrate certain high-profile NPCs into the game (such as introducing certain characters much earlier, as I've done, rather than have them appear as speed bumps later on in a specific module where they help/hinder the PCs).

 

[Argent Silvermage]

Not to kiss Assgard too much but it shows what a superior DM can do with an OK suppliment that we all still are interested in the game.

 

[thatdarncat]

It's possible the story may go on a hiatus which I'm sure would disappoint the three or four people reading.

Much disappointment, but it'd be understanding disappointment. :S

 

[LightPhoenix]

Much disappointment, but it'd be understanding disappointment. :S

So I count for two, thatdarncat make three... who would be the fourth?

 

[Sandain]

I'm the fourth.

 

[wolff96]

Fifth!

I just lurk 99.9% of the time, is all.

 

[LordVyreth]

I figured Zad and company would be used to being the Lurker's Choice by now!

I would probably post more, but until this week or so I had some weird problem with ENworld where every page requires a good minute to load due to some adobe acrobat problem. Also, I was more invested in the last campaign, since I could contribute directly to it. That being said, I enjoy seeing this group's response to an adventure path I know fairly well. I agree with Zad that the Smoking Eye module doesn't entirely fit in with the feel of the rest of the series. I like Dru's response to it, along with the clever use of previous campaign consequences.