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| Wrath River King - questions for designers and patrons |
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| xero |
 Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 8:46 am Post subject: |
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rich, I used the hunting bugbears en route to Riverbend, as you're planning on doing. We haven't met since that encounter, but I doubt it'll have any repercussions on the way the rest of the adventure pans out.
A word of warning though: depending on how you interpret stealth rules, that bugbear encounter can be very hard! The encounter lasted a whole session, with most of it consisting of the PCs getting harried by dive-bombing imps and sniped at by disappearing bugbears. I played up the stealth aspect and it made for a very tense, very difficult encounter. Which was perfect. |
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| richgreen01 |
| Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| xero wrote: |
rich, I used the hunting bugbears en route to Riverbend, as you're planning on doing. We haven't met since that encounter, but I doubt it'll have any repercussions on the way the rest of the adventure pans out.
A word of warning though: depending on how you interpret stealth rules, that bugbear encounter can be very hard! The encounter lasted a whole session, with most of it consisting of the PCs getting harried by dive-bombing imps and sniped at by disappearing bugbears. I played up the stealth aspect and it made for a very tense, very difficult encounter. Which was perfect. |
Thanks for the heads-up! I'll be sure to read through the encounter carefully.
Cheers
Richard |
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| richgreen01 |
| Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 11:16 pm Post subject: |
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| No one else running this adventure? |
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| richgreen01 |
| Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 9:45 pm Post subject: Hunting Bugbears |
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Hi,
Just a quick note to say I ran the hunting bugbears encounter last night as the PCs headed from Parsantium to the ruins of Gopura in the Feyshore Forest. The encounter went well with the bugbears hard to spot until the PCs moved into the trees (at which point two of them blundered into net traps). The imps were good fun too!
They're now in the ruins where there is an opportunity to rescue a villager from Riverbend from the clutches of an ogre. This will lead them on to the rest of Wrath in future sessions.
Cheers
Richard |
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| terraleon |
| Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 7:39 am Post subject: Re: Hunting Bugbears |
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| richgreen01 wrote: |
They're now in the ruins where there is an opportunity to rescue a villager from Riverbend from the clutches of an ogre. This will lead them on to the rest of Wrath in future sessions.
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Please keep us up to date. I know I look forward to hearing how it plays for others!
-Ben.
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| richgreen01 |
| Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 10:41 am Post subject: Re: Hunting Bugbears |
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| terraleon wrote: |
Please keep us up to date. I know I look forward to hearing how it plays for others!
-Ben. |
Will do - won't be for a while though as I think we have a few sessions in the forest ruins themselves. I'm really surprised there's not been more discussion about the adventure on here to be honest.
Richard |
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| Watcher |
| Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 4:24 pm Post subject: Summation |
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| richgreen01 wrote: |
Will do - won't be for a while though as I think we have a few sessions in the forest ruins themselves. I'm really surprised there's not been more discussion about the adventure on here to be honest.
Richard |
Just moved cross country. Big live upheavals are done, except looking for a new job.. which I won't start in earnest till later next week.
I started this thread, but never shared my final summation. I have trouble sometimes commenting on things in a constructive and responsible manner.. but I have plenty of distance between when I ran this and now. I did finish the adventure, but it got abbreviated at the player's request. A lot of this I went over with Terraleon in private, but I'm going to break some of it down here.
Go into this understanding that this was the reaction of one group of individuals, and that's all it is. It doesn't mean that they're right.. (..or that they're necessarily wrong either).
But will TRY to avoid nitpicky stuffand stick to general reactions.
My players didn't enjoy it. I was disappointed because they didn't enjoy it. They didn't mock it too much, however, because they knew the relationship I had to Open Design. About halfway through it, they asked that they see the adventure to the end, but that I cut it down to the last three scenes, and then sum it up.
They'd gotten weary of playing it.
Here are the factors that went into that conclusion (as I believe anyway).
0.) These were characters they made just for the adventure, so they lacked the full development of campaign characters. Also, I ran this as a points of light adventure, which means they had no familiarity with the setting they were playing in. As I started to describe their reactions, I felt this was a fair thing to point out. Those aren't the module's issues, but could have been a contributing factor.
1.) Lack of investment - I played Riverbend as written (which I later regretted), and it didn't go well. They found very little worth saving about the town, and joked lightly that the hateful racially biased villagers probably deserved whatever awful fate they came to.. Froderick engendered a little sympathy, but not enough.
On the flip side, the Satyr Bar Fight and the Bugbear Hunt (despite everything I said about it!) were their favorite encounters.
2.) Challenge of the initial set-up - they didn't accept series of events that they uncovered in the course of their initial investigation. After the Smith was dangled out there as a red herring, they started going very systematically through everything they knew or could find out. When it didn't add up, either in an incriminating way or in a way that would lend it's self to Froderick's innocence.. they started to buck.
From my perspective, the sequence of events is not presented to the GM in a clear defined manner, along with how events could appear to the outsider perspective. I struggled to present the material, and they could sense the lack of confidence I had with what must supposed to be conveyed to the players.
Basically the sequence as I could puzzle out..
A.) Froderick was aware that his wife is by the pond.
B.) At some point he notices he hasn't seen her in a while
C.) Discovers her half drowned, takes her to the Old Wise Woman's hut.
D.) Leaves her at the Old Woman's hut alone (presumably alone, otherwise the Old Woman would have exonerated him with an alibi)
E.) Returns home, long enough to break the pact.
F.) Suspecting that she's run off with a Fae, but never having see her since he dropped her off half-dead at the Woman's House- Froderick runs to town. He does not say his wife has left him for another man, or that she's missing from where he took her for medical care. He instead says she's floating in the pond.
G.) The Old Woman can't attest to any of this.
H.) A likely other suspect, the Smith, is the accuser, and a dead end.
Since sympathy for Froderick was their only source of investment, I didn't want to play up the fact that he might be a liar. But if he's not a liar, he just looks stupid... or the sequence of events is not well thought out.
Now.. in retrospect, I could have fixed all this. However, I didn't realize how little I understood what was being described until I got called on it.
I blamed myself partially, but that got me thinking that the module shared some responsibility.
When I talked to Terraleon about it, he said the combat encounters were playtested. I offered that maybe the role-playing bits needed to be as well (but I am sure that they were at least by Wolfgang's own group).
3.) The Sandbox Style of Presentation - this floored me.. When we had discussions about a Sandbox style of Adventure, I was all for it. It sounded like the way to go, especially since my players are intelligent and independently spirited. I have since then had to revise that way of thinking entirely.
In the middle and as a de-brief, we talked about the Sandbox Style. They were frustrated with bouncing around like pinballs in a pinball machine. I wanted to understand, so I volunteered that it was a Sandbox Style adventure.. and that was identified as one potential problem.
I outlined the advantages of the SS, but they pointed out to me that at least with a more linear track (like a Paizo AP), at least most encounters had some purpose, and contributed to the overall story. The SS left them wth the feeling that some encounters were just filler, or who sole purpose was to demonstrate how wacky the Faewild is.
"I don't feel like I know what were supposed to be doing except wandering around from one encounter to the next", was commonly said prior to getting to the Birch Queen's Fair.
Unfortunately by the time they got to the Birch Queen's Fair, they were ready to start abbreviating the adventure.
4.) Afterwards, a sense that the module was dishonest for the sake of mystery- When it was concluded, we debriefed everything. Some players expressed frustration that Childe Flax and Elder Ellessandra had false memories, as a means of drawing out the mystery. That was cited as a poor mystery telling device, because the player has no reasonable way to figure that out.. I argued that misdirection is part of mystery stories, but to them it felt like a cheat or a dodge. Possibly because the NPCs believe what they say and there is no way to gainsay them, or even figure that out till much later.
I guess it did drag out the mystery, but not in a subtle and satisfying way.. but in way that was frustrating, like the Old Woman in the initial set-up. Shattering any suspension of disbelief.
One player said of Ellesandra, "I remember far less significant things thirty years later, than somebody drowning me on purpose in a pond, which prompts me then to desert my husband along with my only child who was unborn at the time.."
Ultimately, it was just a lack of investment. I asked them to sum up the number one problem with the adventure, and they cited that they just didn't care about what was happening to the town, or the major NPCs.
Some didn't like the humor in the adventure (the Red Knight for example, who was advised by his horse because he was a fool). I don't count comments like that, because I chalk that up to a matter of taste.
********************
My regrets that I couldn't give a more favorable story of how it went.
Again, like before, I don't say this to hurt feelings. It might just have been those players in particular. Then again, maybe something useful can be gleaned from this report. |
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| richgreen01 |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 12:57 am Post subject: Re: Summation |
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| Watcher wrote: |
My regrets that I couldn't give a more favorable story of how it went.
Again, like before, I don't say this to hurt feelings. It might just have been those players in particular. Then again, maybe something useful can be gleaned from this report. |
Thanks for sharing how it went for you and your group. Writing about what didn't work will give me some pointers of things to look out when running the adventure.
0. The adventure is being integrated into my ongoing Parsantium campaign so the players will be running their own characters that they've worked up from 1st level so this won't be an issue for us.
1. I'm bringing them to Riverbend (which I'll probably rename) via a villager held prisoner by a hideous ogre in the ruins of Gopura. She'll be a sympathetic character and maybe a friend of Froderick (also renamed) to get the PCs to care a bit more about the village.
2. I must admit I find the Introduction chapter confusing - each section gives you some important information but the layout isn't as clear as it could be. I'm going to reread this a few times and write my own bullet point notes. I wonder if Wolfgang wrote this early on during the adventure's development and didn't get a chance to rewrite? I seem to remember asking for clarification at the time we did errata.
3. Not having a map of the Feywild doesn't help here. I'm just going to pick the encounters I fancy beforehand and mix them up so there's a nice mixture of combat, skill challenges and RP. I don't think a DM needs to run them all. The Feywild should be confusing so I think this will be pretty cool.
4. A bit different for you as you were running the adventure as a one-off and you felt you needed to explain what the adventure was all about after to your players. As I'll be running this as part of an ongoing campaign, I'm going to try and make sure the PCs can find out as much of the story as possible through what happens in the adventure (eg meeting the River King). I have a Feyshore Forest elf PC with a backstory that might help with some of the interactions with Feywild residents. If they don't suss it out, I'll leave them confused and maybe follow up in another Feywild adventure later.
I'll post here how we get on!
Thanks for your feedback. Would be great to hear from anyone else who ran the adventure too!
Cheers
Richard |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 5:14 am Post subject: |
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Great feedback, and much appreciated.
I largely agree that some of the initial background is more complex than it needs to be. That was largely an attempt to integrate too many suggestions into the backstory. I think it still needs some development or edits for logic.
The lack of the Feywild map is entirely deliberate, and was a design choice that was a bit of an experiment. The PCs are wandering lost in the woods, and the adventure proceeds by chapters. In playtest, there wasn't a need for a map. Looking back, though, I think some GMs would definitely be more comfortable with a map, but in this sort of wilderness adventure it creates as many problems as it solves. Maybe I'll create one.
I don't get the comment about Childe Flax's false memories. He was raised by people with an agenda, and they taught him a view of humans that works for the Fey. The fact that it doesn't agree with the human view of events isn't for the sake of the mystery. It's just the way the fey see things.
As to the lack of investment, I think that's always a danger with pregens and one-offs. There's really no way to force a player to care when it's that sort of convention or in-between adventure. My recommendation is always to use player-generated characters, even for one-offs, whenever possible.
Since the PCs are the players main point of investment in the game, taking that away with pregens is almost always going to result in less player interest.
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| Watcher |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 7:44 am Post subject: |
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| Wolfgang wrote: |
I don't get the comment about Childe Flax's false memories. He was raised by people with an agenda, and they taught him a view of humans that works for the Fey. The fact that it doesn't agree with the human view of events isn't for the sake of the mystery. It's just the way the fey see things. |
I don't disagree. I think Ellesandra's misrembering was really the sticking point. At first she won't tell them too much, and the later she doesn't remember at all (because so many subjective years have passed for her personally). When I described Flax as having been given a false impression of events, it got lumped as part of that particular storytelling device. If I had stuck to Ellesandra only telling the PCs what she wanted to tell them in the first encounter, and then had her relent and tell the whole story in response to good role-playing in the second encounter- I think it might have gone down better.
As for "bouncing around" I might have done a poor job of selecting encounters. I wouldn't put that all on the shoulders of the adventure.
When they got to the Feywild, they were pretty focused on finding the River King and getting this matter straightened out. They took the tact that some terrible misunderstanding was taken place, possibly egged on by a third party. That's a pretty accurate guess. They wanted to get right to it. A desire to explore and experience a strange new realm just wasn't there. Thus it felt like I was throwing up encounters as obstacles to play it out.
You have to couple that with the fact that 4E encounters are naturally longer. That's not a symptom of the adventure, but the rule set. The side effect, however, is that if you have an encounter that lasts most of the session and it doesn't advance the story.. they call it a filler encounter.
I think, more as a statement of 4E itself, you have to be careful in your design not to have too many big encounters for their own sake. Not just because of the PCs resources before they rest and recharge, but simply for player fatigue before they see the story advance. |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 9:05 am Post subject: |
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| Watcher wrote: |
When they got to the Feywild, they were pretty focused on finding the River King and getting this matter straightened out. They took the tact that some terrible misunderstanding was taken place, possibly egged on by a third party. That's a pretty accurate guess. They wanted to get right to it. A desire to explore and experience a strange new realm just wasn't there. Thus it felt like I was throwing up encounters as obstacles to play it out.
::SNIP.::
I think, more as a statement of 4E itself, you have to be careful in your design not to have too many big encounters for their own sake. Not just because of the PCs resources before they rest and recharge, but simply for player fatigue before they see the story advance. |
Yes, I think that you're right on both counts. The inhouse playtest group LOVED exploring the Feywild and RP encounters for their own sake. They took a sort of Arthurian, "We'll wander around until the quest kicks in again" approach to it, and I spent some time tying the diversions and side encounters back into the mainline plot. A different set of player priorities than "let's get this sorted out NOW".
The big encounters in the Feywild; well, a lot of them are RP encounters, so I'm just wondering which ones you considered "big" in this context? I can guess one just by the creature type (the Solo with his servants). Not sure about the others. We tended to do two encounters or more in a 4 hour session duing playtest.
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| Watcher |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Wolfgang wrote: |
The big encounters in the Feywild; well, a lot of them are RP encounters, so I'm just wondering which ones you considered "big" in this context? I can guess one just by the creature type (the Solo with his servants). Not sure about the others. We tended to do two encounters or more in a 4 hour session duing playtest. |
A surprising example of this was the frog riding goblins.
The goblins are not tough opponents, if of themselves, but their mounts quickly demonstrate themselves to be the serious threat. Both in terms of attack, and the ability to take damage.
The players quickly got fixated on the frogs, since the goblins couldn't hit worth a damn.
Eventually I started to.. uh.. suggest that perhaps if the goblins were picked off, the frogs would just go away. They wouldn't do it. After a few more rounds, I said it again a little more overtly.
One player disgustedly replied, "After 95 hitpoints, and all my dailys spent, there's no way I'm not frackin' killing that #@$!in' frog now! I'll see these frogs in hell!" The frogs had 120 hits points, but their riders had 37.
I said they didn't mock the module much? The part that did get some scoffing was the frogs. A few weeks later when we rotated GMs and were playing Star Wars Saga, I was still hearing remarks like "As long as the Empire doesn't have 4th Edition Frogs, we should be allright."
But all comedy aside, the Fae horses were just as tough, but they didn't have that same reaction to them. I surmise it was because the Green Knight was an interesting and tough opponent, who was not overshadowed by his mount.
Another example: I've run Rise of the Runelords twice to various degrees. In Chapter One you have a goblin King riding a giant gecko. The gecko is a tough opponent, but the players never lose sight that Chief Ripnugget is the the one to watch.
With both the Green Knight and the Goblin Chief, I could end the encounter by having the mounts flee based on the needs of the encounter.
With the goblins riding the frogs, they quickly just dismissed the goblins as inconsequential. The mounts overshadowed the riders.
And killing those frogs took forever. Far longer than I wanted to run it, and I wasn't a player. |
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| Wolfgang |
| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 3:23 am Post subject: |
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I wish we'd gotten that information in playtest. Thanks for the writeup!
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| richgreen01 |
| Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 12:28 am Post subject: |
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Hi Watcher,
Really useful feedback on the killer frogs! What else is there to look out for that would help with running the adventure?
Cheers
Richard |
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| Eyebite |
| Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 11:51 am Post subject: |
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Wolfgang -
Slightly off topic, but did you see the glowing review Wrath got in Level Up #1?
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