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zippdementia · 7 years

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Part 12 Alignment May Vary: Prophecy of the Tomb of Haggemoth

Starting with this week’s session (post 12) I’m going to mix up my format a bit and do quicker synopsis and more DM analysis, rolling a lesson or two into each session for the enterprising or novice DM. As always, this is for my 5th edition group of three players who have completed one story arc from the Rise of Tiamet adventure path and have since embarked in earnest on a side adventure, the wonderful Tomb of Haggemoth adventure from 3rd edition.

Leaving behind the island of the Ooze, the party sets sail for the Island of Alcazar, the island where the oracle resides, and they arrive without further mishap in a couple of days.

Much of this section of the adventure is meant as set up. The idea is that the party sees the oracle, she gives them a riddle that lists three places they need to go and three things they need to find before they can access the Tomb of Haggemoth. She also rambles on for a bit about character-specific back stories and anything else the GM wants to set up. Since she can see the future, she is the perfect tool for the GM to use as foreshadow. I use her to tell the players that the priest they left in Ottoman’s Dock to take care of the Rose situation (the woman who was selling sex slaves there) has met with misfortune. It’s a set up for next session. I also drop some hooks for each of the players. For Karrina, I foreshadow her quest to find Raiden, mentioning that what she will find is not what she expects and that he believes he did not betray her. For Abenthy, I mention there is one with a great red eye searching for him, whom his father was killed by and against whom Venthusias strives to keep him hidden. For Twyin, I talk about his dead son and hint that there is something darker to his past the others do not know.

There are some other hooks here, as well—for instance, one of the other characters here to see the Oracle is a wizard named Shelackar the Vermiculate (don’t laugh). He has already seen the Oracle and she’s given him some bad news: he done effed up. How? Well, he bet his life against the hand in marriage of a sultan’s daughter that he could make it rain in a place called THE GREAT DRY DESERT. That didn’t work out so well. So he came to the Oracle to seek advice and she told him that he will die if he ever ventures into the desert. But he’ll also die if he doesn’t. This is all build up towards an adventure later in the campaign.

Other characters here can be used by the GM as desired. For instance, there is a warrior here whose lands have been overrun by orcs and he is here to see the Oracle about it. He doesn’t show up again in the pages of the campaign, but Twyin seemed pretty interested in him, so he may very well find a place yet in my version of the campaign or in some future one.

There is a twist to this part of the adventure, too. The unique coin the players have (from their patron Zennatos) which will gain them access to the Oracle is a forgery. Worse, the day they are to see the oracle, the person carrying the real coin shows up, and he is none other than The Butcher of Skago, a plantation owner with enough money and power to buy a small city. When he finds out that someone is using a forgery of his coin he flips shit and demands they be brought before him. Keep in mind this is all before they’ve actually seen the oracle, so the players have to figure out a way past this obstacle. Do they try and fight the Butcher and his men? Do they try to bribe or sweet talk him into giving him the real coin? Or do they slink away and then sneak back to the island at night, determined to force their way into the Oracle’s chambers? In our case, Abenthy tells The Butcher the truth of why they are here to see the Oracle and agrees to pay him HALF of the treasure if they get it. To watch over his investment, The Butcher sends one of his loyal men, a killer named Haymish Hardwicke, to go with them and make sure they keep their word.

Lesson: A Session of Roleplaying

There wasn’t a single roll this session aside from a couple investigation and perception checks. Everything was handled and resolved by roleplaying. Which raises a good question—how do you handle a session that’s entirely roleplaying, while keeping everyone at the table involved and engaged?

It happens to all of us. Whether because of luck, or because they’ve hit a big city with lots to do and no encounters, we all encounter sessions with no combats and not very many rolls. It is easy to write these sessions off by saying “I promise next time there will be combat!” and just gritting your teeth and getting through it. But is there a way to make these sessions exciting and memorable?

First of all, it should be said that roleplaying should be a small part of every session, because it encourages a player to get inside their character’s head (which in turn makes them more engaged in the game) and because it offers a break from tackling every obstacle by rolling dice and checking numbers on a sheet. After all, what sounds more memorable in the following scenario? You come up against the Butcher of Skago and successfully roll a 15 to convince him not to kill you for stealing his coin, or you come up against the Butcher of Skago and over the course of a conversation come up with a way to weasel out of having stolen his coin. Any player will feel more accomplished by the second, for they actually did it.

But despite roleplaying being rewarding, an entire session of it may sound like anathema to you and your players, and with good reason. Roleplaying an entire session of NPCs means coming up with multiple personalities, voices, and being ready to improvise a wealth of responses to things the players might say or ask. It means making judgement calls on how “well” the players are roleplaying their cause, rather than relying on numbers to tell you how things are going. Finally, not all players like roleplaying, and keeping these memebrs of your group engaged and entertained is challenging.

Here’s my tips, with examples from this past session, on how to keep your game flowing and cut down on your work load during such a session.

Make your conversations conflicts. A lot of times the big complaint about roleplaying is that it is “boring.” Players are here to play D&D, after all, and D&D is at its heart a battle game. Character abilities and traits have mechanical effects on dungeons and battles, not usually on conversation. Often times, though, it is not the roleplaying that is boring, it is the situation. It’s simply not fun to talk through a conversation with a shopkeep where you are trying to find the rowdiest inn in town, or buy a pair of nice pants. On the other hand, a conversation with a Dwarven miner who thinks you are after his gold and is about to bring the mine down on the both of you if you can’t convince him otherwise... that is a conversation worth having. If you are afraid your players are going to get bored, then try limiting your conversations to those that have real risk, or add some risk to your smaller conversations. In my session, one of the first NPCs they met was a steward of the island who wasn’t all that interesting but who was the gatekeeper to the Oracle and thus the only way they were going to get to see her. I had him act incredibly suspicious of the players so that the whole conversation was put on edge—so much so that when he finally asked them to turn over their coin, Twyin didn’t want to do it! He felt they would be betrayed. This took what was a necessary conversation and made it tense and thus more exciting.

Use humor. Another good way to liven up a roleplaying session is to use humor. People like to laugh and (hopefully) you are friends with all your players, so that means you (hopefully) like to laugh together! Make one of your NPCs a little goofy, or add in a funny quirk to them. After the players had met two stewards and had similar conversations with them, I was afraid things might get dull. So the third steward they met I turned into an over-zealous, over-the-top salesmen of “Oracle Trinkets.” Little wooden swords with your name engraved on it! Mugs that say “The Oracle saw my future and I was drunk!” In addition, this steward believed (wrongly) that he was good at guessing names, and jumped into conversation by guessing ridiculous names for the characters. Just be careful not to let things go overboard. If one or two characters in your town/island/castle are silly, then that makes your world a little more lively. But if every character is goofy and funny, then your players have stumbled on the Island of Misfit Toys and aren’t very likely to take anything that happens this session very seriously.

Watch and listen to your players. The simplest way to know how to set your pacing is to just pay attention to your players. Look at their body language. If they are building dice towers and nodding along dumbly to everything you say, it’s probably time to skip a few conversations and bring them to your Big Scene (see below) or to start upping the stakes dramatically (see above). Similarly, if your players seem to be asking for MORE roleplaying, don’t be afraid to give it to them. In our session, I had only intended to roleplay Shelacker out of the oracle groupies, because he is the most important, but my players wanted to split up and talk to as many of them as they could. Everyone was eager for this, so I jumped in and played out more of the conversations. I kept them brief, to save us time for the Big Scene, but I wouldn’t have done it at all if I thought my players were getting bored.

Bring in your absentee players. There is one or two players in every group who dominates in roleplaying situations. They have something to say to everyone, a witty comment always ready. They have +5 to jumping in when another player is asked a question and answering it themselves. They walk all over the dice-tower-architect described above, not to mention the shy guy who likes to roleplay but also likes to think about what he says before blurting it out. Plan some things before the session to make sure you are giving these more contemplative players some focus. In one conversation, point dramatically at your dice-tower-architect and have your NPC say, “I saw your picture on the Wanted poster at the bar! You have a price on your head!” This will make them the focus for a while. Or have an NPC set a time to meet your shy guy, and them alone, to give them some information. Don’t let the other players come. This splits the party, but it’s worth it to give some shine to players who aren’t as rambunctious and animated at the table. In my game, all of my players are good roleplayers and pretty strong personalities, but Karrina's character is naturally more silent and withdrawn. So I like to make sure that at least once during a session I put her in a place to be the focus of some important conversation. In this case, it was with Shelacker, who is one of the most interesting characters on the island. Twyin even jumped in at one point—before remembering he wasn’t at the fire where they were conversing!

Find your Big Scene. Before you go into your session, think about what is going to be accomplished during the session. Are the players going to end up with a key piece of information? Are they going to be solving a political crisis? Are they going to be talking their way out of a death sentence, or into the trust of a powerful criminal lord? Once you know this, you should also know what your big obstacle to gaining this will be, and how that obstacle will be bypassed with roleplaying. The scene where this is done is your Big Scene. There may be more than one, but these represent the “action” of your session, the moment when the stakes are highest and each word spoken could make or break the characters. Think of this as the POINT of the session. Steer your players towards this moment. If things get dull, speed them along to it. And when the Big Scene is resolved, start moving them towards the next one, or wrap up the session (if that is the last Big Scene). When preparing for your session, don’t spend too much time on the incidental bits—focus on the Big Scenes. Prepare some things your NPCs in the scene might say or want. Think on some ways the conversation might resolve and what will happen next. In my session, there were two Big Scenes. The first was when the Butcher of Skago turned up. This moment has the potential to change the entire campaign. If players decide to attack the Butcher, that makes a powerful enemy. In addition, I had to be ready to launch into combat if this happened. Instead, they chose to barter, but even this has a big effect: a new NPC added to their party and a big promise they will be expected to keep after the adventure. The other Big Scene is with the Oracle herself. The campaign suggested playing this out in fifteen minutes of real time, with players asking questions and the Oracle answering. That was a lot of material to prepare, but I was glad I did. When we got to that scene, my players seemed stunned and unsure of what to ask, so the first ten seconds or so were spent in silence. I had enough material prepared that I was able to talk for most of the fifteen minutes and steer them towards questions for the rest.

Assign a "Difficulty Class” to the roleplay. Some DMs, especially newer ones, have trouble deciding which way a conversation has gone without a dice roll. An easy way to bypass this is to make up a conversational difficulty class for your Big Scenes before the session. Think on what goal your characters have and come up with some set things they will have to say or mention in conversation in order to achieve this. Each one they say gives them a success. Then decide how many successes they need to win over their opponent, or get their goal. This number is your conversation DC, and it best ranges from 1 (easy) to 4 (very difficult). You may also wish to assign certain things negative points, and if they say those things, then you subtract them from their successes. In the Butcher of Skago scene, I had predetermined that the Butcher was going to be better disposed towards anyone who told him about the treasure hunt, anyone who played off his arrogance, and anyone who seemed actually interested in cows, while he would be very ill disposed towards anyone who made threats. During the conversation, Twyin kept throwing the Butcher intimidating looks, so I lowered the number of successes they were getting in the conversation otherwise. The end result was a decent success, so he jumped right to negotiations. I had already decided he would be willing to accept as little as 10% of the treasure as payment, but the party didn’t argue with 50%, so he happily ripped them off.

Hopefully, identifying the Big Scene will help give you a landmark to steer by when running a roleplay heavy session, and the other advice helps get you through without losing your players.

I know that last time I said I would be discussing monster/encounter building in this post, but I’m going to save that for next time, in Return to Ottoman Dock (when they are far more likely to have some encounters).

#dnd 5e #Advice for DM #Playthrough #Tomb of Haggemoth #epic #Dungeons and Dragons #Journey Log #Wizards of the Coast #fantasy #RPG

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