Let them run! They won't find any other Wrath-based Runewells on dry land.
Have they taken out Nualia yet? If not, then have another goblin raid happen... or have the NPC heads of the town request that they take out Nualia before she manages to free whatever demon she's trying to free.
If they've finished Thistletop off... then let them have fun going around for a bit on their wild goosechase. And then start into Skinsaw Murders by mentioning that some of the items of the Obsession target are missing (like a hairbrush or the like). Or have them notice an odd sharp odor in the air, like something dead is in the bushes (as Aldern stalks them from afar).
Build the suspense.
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Looks like it's been resolved, but I think the *only* "criticism" I'd levy is allowing them to evacuate Sandpoint. Have you ever watched fire departments or the National Guard try to evacuate a town? There are always the stubborn folk who refuse to leave, no matter what you tell them.
There's another "good place for a town evacuation" in Book 4, and I simply told the PCs that 10% of the population would not budge, no matter how much they begged and pleaded, and that was enough to put a bunch of wonderful NPCs in harm's way. The nobles can be particularly stubborn, and allowing all of a town's nobles and financial barons to perish at the hands of a goblin raid ain't great PR, nor is it good for town economics.
Similarly, 10% of Sandpoint's population is 120 people. You could point out that their innate stubbornness is closely akin to wrath, and leaving them to die might not be a great idea.
But I like to give my players free rein as well. They learned about the runewells, were convinced that their job was to stop them, and I just dropped a hint that maybe, just maybe, Thistletop might be associated with Thassilonian ruins. Poof! Off they went to Thistletop, scouring it in its entirety for runewells. (They also spent a huge amount of time trying to excavate under the lighthouse, but that's another thread.)
So I wouldn't worry that you've given them too much information; just be sure to drop tiny extra little tidbits that steer them the way you want them to go.
Where did these 1200 people go when they evacuated the place? How? How are they moving their stuff? Who is guarding Sandpoint now? It's soon going to be swarming with opportunist goblins, animals, thieves, people who left stuff behind, people who need to look after their animals or have perishable stock, any other nasties crawling out of the woods, and so on.
And if/when there is no attack, people like Vin Vender will really have it in for the PCs.
I'd like to know HOW they convinced everyone to leave the US government cant even convince everyone in a town to leave when confronted with a natural disaster like an impending hurricane, much less a hypothetical invasion. thats enough hole poking for me, not my game:)
I'd say after the first attack never happened, half of the people will go "Giants? Yeah, right. I remember that whole 'goblin' fiasco, I'm staying home this time!"
Personally I'd evacuate the town underneath Sandpoint in the smuggers' tunnel. A few guards on each end could keep everyone safe.
I'd say after the first attack never happened, half of the people will go "Giants? Yeah, right. I remember that whole 'goblin' fiasco, I'm staying home this time!"
Personally I'd evacuate the town underneath Sandpoint in the smuggers' tunnel. A few guards on each end could keep everyone safe.
then they could tear each other apart due to to close proximity to each other AND the rune well of wrath;) at least then they don't have to worry about the league of shadows doing it for them (sorry too much batman lately:) also the Scarnettis are such stubborn D-bags i can't imagine they'd evacuate for any reason, not to mention fitting an entire town in the tunnels
Have other runewells of Wrath ignite, with some little town detonating because of it...?
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All the other Runewells of Wrath are underwater or out to sea. Sure, you can handwave that away but there's no need to actually deviate significantly from the module. While it may seem like fun... getting the game back on track becomes more difficult.
Yeah... going off on a tangent can be problematic.
All the other Runewells of Wrath are underwater or out to sea. Sure, you can handwave that away but there's no need to actually deviate significantly from the module. While it may seem like fun... getting the game back on track becomes more difficult.
yeah i missed the part where they de-activated the rune well, my point about the impossibility of evacuating an entire town of 1,200 free thinking and sometimes stubborn frontiers people still stands, it would never work in the wild, much less a bunch of cramped tunnels (at least not for long before people get to each other, and certainly not at the behest of a few upstart adventurers from a vague threat)
Well, there are a couple of other central locations which are probably more easily defendable. For instance, the Cathedral and the Jail are both stone buildings and are not at the outskirts of town. The Glassworks is also a sizable building (with the underground tunnels attached to them) made of stone. The Town Hall is also made of stone.
What the PCs do is show the note, point out that most of the town is wood, and people will burn alive if the PCs are unable to stop a couple dozen giants and a dragon.
Having the Scarnettis hold out is perfectly logical, and fits within the actual module itself (where if you've not wiped the giants out quickly then the Scarnetti manor is looted by some entrepreneurial giants).
the cathedral or the jail or the glassworks aren't going to keep the giants out (not that it matters because they are far off from that:) and their will be more then the Scarnettis resistant to leaving (i'm an expert on small towns, having grown up in them) the scarnettis are just the tip of the iceberg) basically anyone that has invested time and effort into their livelihood and blood and sweat into their hometown will not leave for anything wether its a flood, earthquake, hurricane or vague threat of invasion.
sorry, i'm done de-railing the thread now, just wanted to point that out:)
Technically, going to a central location within the town isn't evacuating the town. ;) So you'll have far fewer holdouts.
To be honest, players always pull a surprise on the GM. If the GM anticipates them evacuating the town they won't. If they don't think they will, someone will consider it. I just like to have the bases covered, just in case. I still get surprised, but I've less work to do if I've already factored in a number of possibilities.
(For instance, what if a party member casts "Wall of Stone" to fortify the river's edge buildings? Well, the giants will just grab the wall and walk backward to pull it down and then continue forward. I'd just rule a strength check is needed and each Giant tries for its own section. A good part of that impromptu wall is going down, especially as it was not built with a sound foundation in mind.)
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Ah! you wanna talk about surprises from PCs try GMing for 9-10 year olds every game is a surprise:) i get your point about fortifications and such its just after having lived most of my life in towns that had max populations of 1,200 or less i know the futility of evacuations and even trying to get everyone to stay together in cramped tunnels or in one building for any length of time, especially for only a small army of goblin.
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Oh! I was talking about the giants and dragon! And I do believe the earlier "didn't pan out" attack would probably result in people ignoring the giant problem to a far greater extent.
Especially as you don't know WHEN the attack will happen. Indeed, if the party manages to get the town to evacuate (where do they go? The nearest city is a two-day journey! And what of all the outlying farms? Heck, the town has a wall! So why evacuate the entire town when you can just consolidate in one area?) or hide in one or two locations... I'd put off the attack.
Sure, the PCs can start doing fortifications like Walls of Stone and the like (which can be taken down) but you end up with everyone returning home after two days because nothing happened, people are grumbling at the PCs... and THEN the giants hit. Early morning (as in the module) so that it's pretty much impossible for everyone to meet at set locations. And have any fortifications fail to last more than half a minute (five round).
You'll have the streets FULL of people fleeing, giants having a field day, and the PCs at wits end. But then, I'm evil and freely admit it. ;)
All great ideas tangent 101 i like the way you thnk :) you nailed small town folks perfectly
Actually, there is one OTHER time I'd be willing to attack, for characters with Mythic tiers. Right at sundown. This way, any spellcasters would likely have burnt off Mythic powers to cast extra Walls of Stone and the like. So they'll be at a distinct disadvantage... especially when the walls don't stand for long. (Naturally a PC could use Knowledge Engineering to get a grasp that walls right at the river's edge just won't last... though I could imagine the outcry if the PCs suggest putting up stone walls between the first and second sets of buildings because they'd block streets AND those outlying buildings "deserve" protection too!)
The PCs may, if you're sufficiently evil about small town politics and outrage at the heroes just acting without permission or ignoring the will of specific building owners, just give up on fortifying altogether! Heh heh heh....
I ran into this with Fortress of the Stone Giants.
The cleric had Sending (Sor/Wiz/Clr 5), so they used Sending after Sending, almost every day after Hook Mountain was done, to warn the Sandpoint mayor and sheriff about the incoming stone giants. But the book specifically says NOT to evacuate Sandpoint.
So I compromised. Backwards villagers and all that. I had 1/3 of them go to Magimar, which the adventurers met on the way back, while the rest stayed in Sandpoint. That way I got to use the militia, the old Varisian druid crone who can cast Call Lightning, the theater owner who can cast Quench and Pyrotechnics, etc. to defend the town. And having Sandpoint under martial law helps keep the players from wandering away until the stone giants arrive the next morning.
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Remember, you get more of what you reward. If you want the PCs to do clever stuff, roleplaying, etc., then you need to let them get somewhere by being clever and doing this. I'd be overjoyed to have PCs that thought of this and pulled it off!
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he pc's went to the mayor and asked her to organise taking down the two bridges and then evacuate the people to the farmlands. Reasoning that the goblins will avoid the farmland due to the direction they approach.
Your players might be clever, but they didn't check their facts. Did you show them the map on page 33?
First, the bridges are the route to the farmlands. So, the town cannot dismantle them, because they will be needed for the return.
Second, five different goblin tribes are working together. The tribes are described on pages 18-19. The north road is the easiest approach for the Birdcruncher Tribe of Shank's Wood, the Thistletop Tribe, and the Mosswood Tribe, but the Licktoad Tribe in Brinestump Marsh and Seven Tooth Tribe west of Devil's Platter would approach Sandpoint from the south road, unless they march through the farmlands to reach Mosswood from the south. Mossword is adjacent to both the north road and the farmlands. Shalelu reported, "Only a day ago, a farm south of Mosswood was burnt to the ground by a group of goblins." (page 18)
Griffon1x warned, "Don't let the players play you." The players invented a plan that looked like it could bypass the hard parts of the module. But the plan was flawed and could be turned into a new adventure. This happens to me all the time. I learned to roll with it.
For example, the evacuation would pass within scouting range of the Licktoad or Seven Tooth goblins. Have the Seven Tooth goblins attack a group of evacuees, who take refuge in a fireproof farmhouse. One person escapes with the news. Force the PCs to rescue them. The mayor delays the rest of the evacuation.
Despite my experience I cannot invent new adventures during the game session. Invention takes time. I play along during the session and think up the plot twists between games. Just avoid giving promises you can delay until later. Don't say, "The evacuation went without hitch." Say, "You have to wait until a messenger gets back for any news."
the players are convinced that the bad guys plan is to use the goblins war with sandpoint to fill up the well and use it as a sort of tactical nuke.
The fifth module, Sins of the Saviors, begins with mystic spillage from the runewells of greed overflowing into the runewell of wrath below Sandpoint and resurrecting Xaliasa, the master of the quasit Erylium.
When I ran Rise of the Runelords filling the runewell of wrath with power was Erylium's secret plan, and she trained Nualia to carry it out unwittingly. Erylium wanted her master back. And Xaliasa is CR 14.
I let my players learn this in Sins of the Saviors.
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More than anything, you need to have a conversation with your players.
Are they interested in following the adventure path as it is, accepting the occasional (hopefully rare) “railroady” moment?
For some players, the answer is yes. They want to see and experience what Paizo has come up with.
For some players, the answer is no. They may be OK with using the scenarios as starting point or inspiration mines, but want their own clever solutions rewarded, and be able to make real change in the game world.
You and your players need to have a conversation about this and get on the same page.
Either they accept the occasional heavy hand (and get rewarded with the classic Rise of the Runelords experience), or you accept them going totally off the rails (and get rewarded with something new and cool being created and explored spontaneously at your table).
I think having mis-matched expectations about this can be a problem.
Personally, I would be very disappointed as a player in either of these two situations:
1. I go in thinking we’re playing a game where anything can happen, the world coming alive through the application of rules and dice to our PC’s and the NPC’s choices, but the GM is trying to keep me on a rail.
2. Or, I’m psyched about the AP concept, put in effort to avoid spoilers, wanting to experience RotR as pure as it is, (almost like a video game experience) but the GM is introducing or branching away too much from that core.
I don’t think compromising between these two approaches is going to make anyone happy. The players and GM should decide together which of the two styles they want.
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A ideas how to deal with my clever little poppets? :S
Tsuto knows about Malfeshnakor. Make the PCs feel they are on a timer to stop him being released and therefore destroying Sandpoint. They have no choice but to go to Thistletop and stop him.
Regarding the evacuation. Could have been avoided by having Tsuto urge the PCs to chop the enemy off at the neck, kill the woman that was manipulating him and say that the goblins are all imbeciles and will fall apart without her... is it too late to do this?
As for other wells, just have the scholar dude tell them and that Bakrakan is entirely submerged with the exception of Sandpoint, he could have some ancient map of the Boundaries or somesuch... besides, once Thistletop is done the PCs will have murders to deal with if they are good little deputies.
One big problem I see with the evacuation is where are you sending them? If not loading ships to Magnimar, you're simply playing into the Goblins hands.
So if the players pushed it they'd find themselves having moved the good people of Sand Point from the relative safety of the town and it's defenses out into the fields and woods where they are easy prey for the Goblins and any allies that might join them.
Our party would be left with a lot of blood on their hands and a pretty unhappy group of survivors burying their dead in the field and watching their town burn in the distance.
As for keeping them on the railroad, it's not so much a railroad as a pretty good story. The evacuation isn't to far away from the base line, but it's taking a solvable threat, and turning it into a major disaster. The module has so many hooks, situations, and information to throw at them if done interestingly they should be consumed with the material at hand and not need to run off in the wrong direction.
One tool you could always employ is to have them make a knowledge check, and let the one that rolls highest remember a story about a past disaster doing what they are wanting to do elsewhere in Golarion. Or, have the Mayor give them the same info when they propose it. While that might not stop them, it will make it tough for them to whine when they get cut up by the Goblins in the open fields.
I've encountered this problem, overtly Rise of Runelords suffers from poor initial direction: Players don't have an obvious "end goal" to work towards so are just latching onto anything/everything that looks like it might lead somewhere.
So the trick is to give them something succinct to work towards and the reward for doing so obvious. What that reward and end goal is, is for you to decide.
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My players (I think) have a general idea that something is stirring in the area, but no real direction to point their fingers. We are just starting book 4, and they have an idea that someone named Mokmorian is running things, but they still react more than anything. This isn't a bad thing, but then again, I don't really think I've seen an AP yet that is built towards being proactive, except maybe Kingmaker.
Speaking of the railroad and RotL, Mike Shea had an interesting solution: he based his Pathfinder campaign on one of the Golarion city books and two of the adventure paths and just cribbed encounters and events and locations liberally from the paths, letting players go where they wanted. One of the paths he used was Rise of the Runelords. I don't remember the exact episodes unfortunately. :(
Here is the show: http://podbay.fm/show/509608859
Stealing this thread away from the OP, my "clever" group didn't have the patience to piece together the puzzle that leads to the Glassworks situation. Reading through the entire AP, the Glassworks looks to me as if it's the starting station of this railroad that is "Burnt Offerings". After finding the evidence in the boneyards and going on a boar hunt with Aldern, they decided to go to Magnimar, their motivation being "maybe there's more adventure to be had there instead of this dull backwater"...
Now what? Suggestions anyone?
Preview the skinsaw murders while they're there, but not so much that they get drawn into it (mix it in with an assortment of other minor stuff). Then have Sheriff Hemlock or one of his men bump into them while he's trying to recruit more soldiers. He can complain about how he's not getting anything from the Mayor and could use some help.
Stealing this thread away from the OP, my "clever" group didn't have the patience to piece together the puzzle that leads to the Glassworks situation. Reading through the entire AP, the Glassworks looks to me as if it's the starting station of this railroad that is "Burnt Offerings". After finding the evidence in the boneyards and going on a boar hunt with Aldern, they decided to go to Magnimar, their motivation being "maybe there's more adventure to be had there instead of this dull backwater"...
Now what? Suggestions anyone?
Perhaps you could provide more detail?
The Glassworks is not much of a puzzle - Bethana gives the pc's the note from Tsuto and they go to the Glassworks to see what happened to their friend Ameiko. Goblins, murder, chaos ensue.
Have they already left for Magnimar? Did they get the briefing from Hemlock and Shalelu, you know the one where imminent goblin attacks are feared and the Sheriff asks them to stay visible IN town? As in Stay Here.
I love the railroad threads. Like you thought an AP was anything else? This is not Skyrim or WoW - it's a published tabletop RPG adventure. It's not going to have a tremendous diversity of optional paths - if that's what you or your players want, an AP is not for you. There has to be some mutual acknowledgement of this reality - you need to insert information to guide them on the path. So if when they're leaving for Magnimar, Hemlock intercepts them and kicks off the Shalelul-goblins-are-massing-for-an-attack scene. Yep, there's a certain amount of railroading there but what else are you going to do? The players should never sit bored - after the initial goblin attack they need to get hit with the skeletons, the shopkeepers daughter, Ameiko's confrontation with her father, the boar hunt, the goblin in the closet, the Grim News from Mosswood, Tsuto's note, Glassworks. The only reason you would let other things interrupt that sequence is if the pc's have something else interesting (to them) to do in Sandpoint (tied any particular character background, etc.)
Stealing this thread away from the OP, my "clever" group didn't have the patience to piece together the puzzle that leads to the Glassworks situation. Reading through the entire AP, the Glassworks looks to me as if it's the starting station of this railroad that is "Burnt Offerings". After finding the evidence in the boneyards and going on a boar hunt with Aldern, they decided to go to Magnimar, their motivation being "maybe there's more adventure to be had there instead of this dull backwater"...
Now what? Suggestions anyone?
Two points:
1) regarding the whole "Railroad" concept, I see no reason, just because a DM is "running an AP" that he needs to "keep the players on the railroad". I really like to give my players the impression that the world is wide open for anything they choose to do, and if they fall off the railroad, I have no problem running impromptu adventures on the fly. Sometimes I'll even throw in little sidequests to give them some extra xp or to deepen a given plot point.But there are always ways to entice them back. Dropping little clues here and there that coax them back to some missed chapter is far better than railroading them.
2)For those players who've already migrated to Magnimar, there are two ways to run things.
The key is to go with the flow and adapt your carefully-laid plans to the players' actions, rather than the other way round.
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1) regarding the whole "Railroad" concept, I see no reason, just because a DM is "running an AP" that he needs to "keep the players on the railroad". I really like to give my players the impression that the world is wide open for anything they choose to do, and if they fall off the railroad, I have no problem running impromptu adventures on the fly. Sometimes I'll even throw in little sidequests to give them some extra xp or to deepen a given plot point.
Its because APs are built around set piece locales, motivations and the like. The second that the players start being players, parts of it start to fall apart.
Its as if they're playing a book, but one they haven't read. They're being pushed towards certain events and outcomes, with only bandaids put into the AP to account for this (as game developers aren't prognosticators).
I remember a thread a while back about what happens if the party doesn't like the guy who turns into the Skinsaw Murderer, or if he gets killed by random goblin action in the early adventures, or if the party does some sort of mojo to him to keep him from going all whacky.
Players do odd stuff, and they pick up on odd stuff. Super obvious hints, aren't.
People point out the railroad because the railroad rides through pretty much every AP. Reign of Winter basically tries to handcuff you to the Plot(tm), but even it gets a little squirrely when player characters die off and therefore players slip their cuffs.
Skull and Shackles falls apart immediately if the party doesn't intend to become buccaneers or if they try to become smart buccaneers by becoming privateers with letters of marque. One captain gets the idea in the first ap of taking his ship and pledging to Andoran or getting on shore and legging it, and five books of material go down to Davey Jones.
Most of the APs punish players for having the unbridled gall of not following a script they don't even know about. The party OP talks about is trying something clever (they even made a somewhat rational surmise about the well), but it doesn't match the script, therefore the only way to salvage the money the OP spent on the adventure is to try to find a way to lure his party back onto the railroad.
No setpiece battle for Sandpoint, no giant stuff later on, no charging the Runewell, and thus the entire world tumbles to fault because there isn't the correct string of breadcrumbs.
My only one suggestion is ironically the idea of 'Tell the PCs everything three times.' Seed the world with information about the plots and incidents going on. It might get them back on track.
Don't punish the party for being clever. You're there to have fun with them, not punish them for not following the script.
Most of the APs punish players for having the unbridled gall of not following a script they don't even know about. The party OP talks about is trying something clever...
I'm pretty upfront with my players about it - The AP has a story and a timeline - they are free to ignore things as they want - but the timeline will continue regardless of how they want to proceed.
If they decide to go off chasing butterflies they'll have to put up with custom stuff from me, and the possibility that bad things could happen - if they are interested in the story I provide as much as possible in terms of clues and direction without giving them a 'go do this' card.
I adapt to their goofiness all the time, and thus make changes to the plot and such as it goes along. I have side quests and plot lines that have nothing to do with the AP thrown in - so far about 3/4 of them were ignored. So be it - either way I try to make sure they have options and don't feel *forced* into any one thing.
In this particular instance though I think the problem wasn't the 'railroad' - it was that the players felt bored in Sandpoint - which I have a hard time wrapping my head around, as we spent 2 months (weekly sessions of around 4 hours a session) just playing around there. The trick to playing this AP in the beginning is to make sure things *happen* when the players start to look a little shifty in their seats. There are many encounters in the AP proper to keep the action moving along - if you just say 'nothing happens' and 'what are you doing' players are going to go wild. If you need a timelapse between event a and event b it's entirely reasonable to say the next week is uneventful - would anyone like to do crafting during this time.... and skip to the action.
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Most of the APs punish players for having the unbridled gall of not following a script they don't even know about. The party OP talks about is trying something clever...
I would disagree with this somewhat. AP's don't punish players, GM's punish players. AP's provide a timeline, narrative backstory/NPC motivation information, and defined adventure/encounter areas associated with those events/characters/monsters (etc.) Player punishment (negative experience, frustration, boredom, and so forth) comes in the form of GM response to their witting or unwitting departure from those structures. The GM may not be comfortable with improvising, the GM may not have intended (have time available) to insert home-brew elements into the AP, the GM may not be good at or have experience at altering the AP plotline on the fly yet keeping the overall structure intact, etc. Some "punishment" may come from GM hostility to player actions but I suspect more often it's readiness and ability to respond. (In either case player experience may be equally poor.)
Most complaints about railroading are really complaints about the quality of the GMing the complainer is receiving. Not taking shots at anyone - it's not an easy job and it takes some experience to do it well. Any published material is a railroad and so frankly is any home-brew campaign - you can only do things the GM has accounted for. There are two solutions: keep the players involved in something so the railroad elements are not hitting them between the eyes and having players who get it. Some level of player buy-in and support make it A LOT easer.
GM: "I told you Rise of the Runelords would take place in Varisia. So No, you will not be going to Absalom."
Player: "But my Oracle is destined to solve the mystery of Aroden's death. He has to go to Absalom to complete his life's mission!"
Evacuating Sandpoint in response to a potential goblin attack and hunting for other runewells (the OP's situation) is an unorthodox but valid tactic - the players are trying to solve the problem - they are engaged.
Leaving Sandpoint before even getting to the Glassworks (the thread necromancer's dilemma) is the players abandoning the campaign before it even starts. The players are disengaged.
Exactly!
A clever DM can improvise and adapt the AP so as to utilise its elements even when players diverge widely from the "railroad".
Aside from improvising side quests on the fly (always a key skill for DMs to possess) a DM can adapt clues to new locales, reflavor villains and settings to pop up anywhere in the game world they need to be.
I mean...
In the example above of players inexplicably travelling to Absolom, what's to stop book 2 from taking place there instead of in Magnimar?
And on the floor of the sea there are mountains... <g>