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[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
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<blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7250546" data-attributes="member: 79141"><p><strong>Replies, Observations & Notes</strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So far no one has said anything that indicates they're feeling persecuted. (Despite the fact that one character has been first killed and then petrified!) Well, we'll soon see about that! My plan is to have a few more ambushes than those presented in the adventure because my version may take a bit longer (with twice as many memories to unearth) so we need to break it up a bit. Also, the Ob - specifically, agents of Roland Stanfield - are in pursuit of Uriel in case he is able to access Malthusius' memories: Malthusius worked out Stanfield was the head of the bronze cell and got murdered for his pains. Well, handed over to Leone Quital, which amounts to the same thing. Quital tried to use him as a bargaining chip when the unit entered the Cauldron Hill facility, and Malthusius ended his current incarnation to save his friends from making an impossible decision.</p><p></p><p>Which reminds me:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You're exactly right. The episode above is a perfect example. If Malthusius' player, as a deva, hadn't suggested that he might know Roland Stanfield when generating his contacts (five years ago!), the above events would never have happened. They have now led to a major side-quest in which Uriel will use the <em>Arc of Reida</em> to access the memories of his prior incarnations, while globe-trotting alongside Kasvarina.</p><p></p><p>Similar player-driven elements to our campaign include:</p><p></p><p><strong>Uru's Garden</strong> - A reference to which prompted your comment. Uru became obsessed with helping the children of the Nettles - including the dead ones. To this end he created his underground garden, and sowed it with plants from the Bleak gate. Although we opened the reboot with an adventure here, it has taken something of a back-seat since the paragon tier adventures don't take place in Flint. But the garden is perhaps the perfect example for me of player-designed colour because it really brings the character and the setting to life.</p><p></p><p><strong>Rumdoom's Cult & the Stone of Not</strong> - Again, when the players generated their contacts, Rumdoom was connected to an entire cell of eschatologists. The player also invented the mythical Stone of Not, as a focus for their obsession. I have lost count of the plot threads this has given rise to, but the most obvious is that two of the four cell-members joined up with the terrorists in adventure #5. Another, Khaled Valchek, became a major campaign villain until he was sort of rehabilitated in adventure #6. Rumdoom's Cult developed out of all this, and now thrives in Trekhom. Actually, come to think of it, Rumdoom himself is pretty central to the feel of our campaign. (The others wouldn't consider a reboot unless his player returned!) When his player added 'fear of boats' during chargen I knew we were on to a winner.</p><p></p><p><strong>Matunaaga's People</strong> - The githzerai who live in the Hidden Valley and have been allies of the Kings of Risur for centuries. Loyal and dogged, they rescinded their ancient oath following the carnage of Yerasol IV. The player and I thrashed out an entire culture (albeit a fairly derivative one) to fit the aesthetic of the character. But the hiatus in our campaign - and the need to give the unit somewhere to hide - has turned the gith into major allies, giving sanctuary to Korrigan and his son, Uriel and other unit members. They arrived on Lanjyr as slaves of the gidim, so I hope to include them even more once the Ob's ritual opens the floodgates!</p><p></p><p><strong>Korrigan's political ambitions</strong> - A huge subplot driven not by the player's ego, or a desire to win power, but a character-driven realisation that things were not 'right' in Flint. This led to a huge campaign to thwart the ambitions of Khaled Valchek and Benedict Pemberton (who remained offstage in a piece of artful foreshadowing) and saw Korrigan request that he be allowed to challenge Stanfield for the governorship of Flint. Obviously this is all in the past now, but look at how many rivallries it set up! It also establishes Korrigan very firmly as an ideal candidate for king.</p><p></p><p><strong>Uriel</strong> - Once the player realised the jig was up for poor Malthusius, his reward was to go 'full deva'. Uriel's character arc will take the player on a journey through his past incarnations, as he gains access to their skills and abilities through memory events. This was inspired by the player's own fascination with Malthusius' past, and his desire to explore the deva paragon path in 4E. Unlike Stanfield - who summons his past incarnations - Uriel will <em>become </em>them. Right now, though he is tier one, with no 'type' or class - and therefore no abilities at all (except for some handy rituals). To the player's credit he is actually <em>enjoying</em> being useless and poking his nose where it doesn't belong, forcing the others to rescue him. Anyway, all of this allows me to sidetep the risk of <em>Diaspora </em>becoming the 'Kasvarina Show', as the campaign director warns. (I have a couple of other ideas up my sleeve to prevent that too.)</p><p></p><p>Here, I am not even including Leon's mysterious love Lavanya (who has popped up in Cauldron Hill and on Mutravir) or the shenanigans with Korrigan's family because they were additions I made, leaving the players in a reactive state instead of being in the driving seat. As a result, although they added differentiating colour to the campaign (and provided me material for buffer adventures when the publication rate slowed down) they have not been as successful as the shared ideas.</p><p></p><p>That is my biggest piece of advice for anyone running this campaign. Get your players to think hard about their contacts, link them up to the world. I didn't go all that far compared to other DMs and wish I had included more NPCs in my characters' backgrounds (although, in my defence, the campaign hadn't been published so I couldn't).</p><p></p><p>Speaking of advice, I began this thread with the intention of adding notes for DMs as I wrote it, a habit that has fallen by the wayside since we converted to Cypher System (because a lot of advice stems from how the adventure plays out within the system you're using). So here's something I noticed about the start of adventure #8: there's a big section about tracking down Kasvarina which allows the characters to capitalise on their prestige and familiarises the players with the region they are about to explore - both of which I applaud. But in the end, as there is no penalty for success or failure, I'm not sure it's worth running the actual search. I used Gale to skip to the end (in a nod to the first draft of the adventure, and to remind the players about Isobel Travers and other campaign elements they may have forgotten). But I brought her in <em>after</em> they had studied the map and thought about how they would track down Kasvarina without help. (PS. There's a similar bit in <em>Schism</em>, where there's no time factor or tension in tracking down Quital. You either find him in a few days or in a few weeks, it makes no difference. I like the idea of a manhunt, and I guess it doesn't matter if the players aren't <em>aware</em> there is nothing at stake, but these sections did give me pause when I was running them.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="gideonpepys, post: 7250546, member: 79141"] [b]Replies, Observations & Notes[/b] So far no one has said anything that indicates they're feeling persecuted. (Despite the fact that one character has been first killed and then petrified!) Well, we'll soon see about that! My plan is to have a few more ambushes than those presented in the adventure because my version may take a bit longer (with twice as many memories to unearth) so we need to break it up a bit. Also, the Ob - specifically, agents of Roland Stanfield - are in pursuit of Uriel in case he is able to access Malthusius' memories: Malthusius worked out Stanfield was the head of the bronze cell and got murdered for his pains. Well, handed over to Leone Quital, which amounts to the same thing. Quital tried to use him as a bargaining chip when the unit entered the Cauldron Hill facility, and Malthusius ended his current incarnation to save his friends from making an impossible decision. Which reminds me: You're exactly right. The episode above is a perfect example. If Malthusius' player, as a deva, hadn't suggested that he might know Roland Stanfield when generating his contacts (five years ago!), the above events would never have happened. They have now led to a major side-quest in which Uriel will use the [I]Arc of Reida[/I] to access the memories of his prior incarnations, while globe-trotting alongside Kasvarina. Similar player-driven elements to our campaign include: [B]Uru's Garden[/B] - A reference to which prompted your comment. Uru became obsessed with helping the children of the Nettles - including the dead ones. To this end he created his underground garden, and sowed it with plants from the Bleak gate. Although we opened the reboot with an adventure here, it has taken something of a back-seat since the paragon tier adventures don't take place in Flint. But the garden is perhaps the perfect example for me of player-designed colour because it really brings the character and the setting to life. [B]Rumdoom's Cult & the Stone of Not[/B] - Again, when the players generated their contacts, Rumdoom was connected to an entire cell of eschatologists. The player also invented the mythical Stone of Not, as a focus for their obsession. I have lost count of the plot threads this has given rise to, but the most obvious is that two of the four cell-members joined up with the terrorists in adventure #5. Another, Khaled Valchek, became a major campaign villain until he was sort of rehabilitated in adventure #6. Rumdoom's Cult developed out of all this, and now thrives in Trekhom. Actually, come to think of it, Rumdoom himself is pretty central to the feel of our campaign. (The others wouldn't consider a reboot unless his player returned!) When his player added 'fear of boats' during chargen I knew we were on to a winner. [B]Matunaaga's People[/B] - The githzerai who live in the Hidden Valley and have been allies of the Kings of Risur for centuries. Loyal and dogged, they rescinded their ancient oath following the carnage of Yerasol IV. The player and I thrashed out an entire culture (albeit a fairly derivative one) to fit the aesthetic of the character. But the hiatus in our campaign - and the need to give the unit somewhere to hide - has turned the gith into major allies, giving sanctuary to Korrigan and his son, Uriel and other unit members. They arrived on Lanjyr as slaves of the gidim, so I hope to include them even more once the Ob's ritual opens the floodgates! [B]Korrigan's political ambitions[/B] - A huge subplot driven not by the player's ego, or a desire to win power, but a character-driven realisation that things were not 'right' in Flint. This led to a huge campaign to thwart the ambitions of Khaled Valchek and Benedict Pemberton (who remained offstage in a piece of artful foreshadowing) and saw Korrigan request that he be allowed to challenge Stanfield for the governorship of Flint. Obviously this is all in the past now, but look at how many rivallries it set up! It also establishes Korrigan very firmly as an ideal candidate for king. [B]Uriel[/B] - Once the player realised the jig was up for poor Malthusius, his reward was to go 'full deva'. Uriel's character arc will take the player on a journey through his past incarnations, as he gains access to their skills and abilities through memory events. This was inspired by the player's own fascination with Malthusius' past, and his desire to explore the deva paragon path in 4E. Unlike Stanfield - who summons his past incarnations - Uriel will [I]become [/I]them. Right now, though he is tier one, with no 'type' or class - and therefore no abilities at all (except for some handy rituals). To the player's credit he is actually [I]enjoying[/I] being useless and poking his nose where it doesn't belong, forcing the others to rescue him. Anyway, all of this allows me to sidetep the risk of [I]Diaspora [/I]becoming the 'Kasvarina Show', as the campaign director warns. (I have a couple of other ideas up my sleeve to prevent that too.) Here, I am not even including Leon's mysterious love Lavanya (who has popped up in Cauldron Hill and on Mutravir) or the shenanigans with Korrigan's family because they were additions I made, leaving the players in a reactive state instead of being in the driving seat. As a result, although they added differentiating colour to the campaign (and provided me material for buffer adventures when the publication rate slowed down) they have not been as successful as the shared ideas. That is my biggest piece of advice for anyone running this campaign. Get your players to think hard about their contacts, link them up to the world. I didn't go all that far compared to other DMs and wish I had included more NPCs in my characters' backgrounds (although, in my defence, the campaign hadn't been published so I couldn't). Speaking of advice, I began this thread with the intention of adding notes for DMs as I wrote it, a habit that has fallen by the wayside since we converted to Cypher System (because a lot of advice stems from how the adventure plays out within the system you're using). So here's something I noticed about the start of adventure #8: there's a big section about tracking down Kasvarina which allows the characters to capitalise on their prestige and familiarises the players with the region they are about to explore - both of which I applaud. But in the end, as there is no penalty for success or failure, I'm not sure it's worth running the actual search. I used Gale to skip to the end (in a nod to the first draft of the adventure, and to remind the players about Isobel Travers and other campaign elements they may have forgotten). But I brought her in [I]after[/I] they had studied the map and thought about how they would track down Kasvarina without help. (PS. There's a similar bit in [I]Schism[/I], where there's no time factor or tension in tracking down Quital. You either find him in a few days or in a few weeks, it makes no difference. I like the idea of a manhunt, and I guess it doesn't matter if the players aren't [I]aware[/I] there is nothing at stake, but these sections did give me pause when I was running them.) [/QUOTE]
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