So, I'll start off by acknowledging that I understand WDH is far more open and sandbox than a lot of the written adventures, and it's up to DM's to build a lot of it and fill in the flavor, but I am finding myself a little confused with the second chapter around restoring Trollskull.
I know this chapter is for the players to drive the narrative and get to know the city, but I am a bit confused on how they are supposed to restore Trollskull Manor? They need 1,250 to renovate and get the Tavern up and running. I know a chunk of this will be RPing them getting to know the guilds and factions and interact with the people, but I don't see how they are expected to get the gold to do so? The faction missions all either offer no gold or very minimal gold as reward for completion. Is the idea that as DM I should just augment the rewards to let them accumulate the gold they need? Or should I seed in the opportunity for some side quests and missions they can be hired for? (I'm trying to avoid having them leave the city for any adventures at this stage, we planned this campaign around, and they built their characters around this being a city based campaign)
This is my first time doing a strictly city based campaign, as a player or DM, so maybe it is just my newness to the setting, and it is definitely different than running exploratory type campaigns, but it feels like the second chapter is PARTICULARLY lacking in suggestions/directions/hooks and the rewards for the characters to achieve one of the main ideas of the section, restoring the Manor, unless I am really missing something.
don't let them pass up the goodies in the ch 1 warehouse. yes, they are hidden behind a secret but they're obviously meant for this. figure out how you wanna shoehorn this in or else prepare for a lot of labor in chapter 2.
read further into chapter 2 and see what the faction quests pay. it's going to be a while before they're actually running this tavern because the tavern is a background plot. faction quests are what really fills that time. I kinda wish this was a "customize your base" campaign but the pesky city plot chases you like a little brother. mom said you hafta play with me!!
ask the players. they might have thoughts about antiquing, putting on a show, casting spells for money, horse racing, gambling, etc.
...bonus suggestion: spend a level on the 1st chapter of Acquisitions Inc (set in Waterdeep, take only the parts you like) or find a music box in the tavern to lead into 1st/2nd of Keys from the Golden Vault. might make a good pre-made dungeon break from all that sandbox faction courting.
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
...bonus suggestion: spend a level on the 1st chapter of Acquisitions Inc (set in Waterdeep, take only the parts you like) or find a music box in the tavern to lead into 1st/2nd of Keys from the Golden Vault. might make a good pre-made dungeon break from all that sandbox faction courting.
That’s a really good idea, I was thinking about throwing a golden vault mission at them anyways, but I’ll have to take a look at the AI adventure. I’ve had the sourcebooks for them for a while and haven’t done anything in that space yet.
Chapter 2 has barebones guidelines on wee side missions, basically you run a few missions until you feel the party has dine enough to advance a level or until until the players get board then it’s fireball time.
there’s resources online to pad the missions out, especially if the party shows interest in joining a faction like the harpers. For each mission you can allocate gold, since they are in a city, they could also take a bank loan, which could tie into a wee diversion or back into the main quest if the bank wants the missing gold back?
there’s some great resources on DM guild like “blue alley” where the party can meet some important npcs and get gold.
since chapter 2 can really be as long or short as you and the party want it might be fun to incorporate some player backstories into personal missions? I had a player who’s character was on the run from the local crime guild in their hometown and ended up working with one waterdeep thieves guild whilst being hunted by another. Another player was a newly minted priest so I linked them with the local church and missing artifacts
...bonus suggestion: spend a level on the 1st chapter of Acquisitions Inc (set in Waterdeep, take only the parts you like) or find a music box in the tavern to lead into 1st/2nd of Keys from the Golden Vault. might make a good pre-made dungeon break from all that sandbox faction courting.
That’s a really good idea, I was thinking about throwing a golden vault mission at them anyways, but I’ll have to take a look at the AI adventure. I’ve had the sourcebooks for them for a while and haven’t done anything in that space yet.
the AcqInc fluff before the first dungeon can be dropped with extreme prejudice. Treat it as a really long faction quest if you like. The characters are asked to check out this sinkhole so they do. It's a really linear obstacle course that could easily end in gold instead of the intended macguffin. I felt like the final boss fight there was weak and easily escaped from so finding piles of broken golden machine parts around would be a great reason to stick around and risk one's neck.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
...bonus suggestion: spend a level on the 1st chapter of Acquisitions Inc (set in Waterdeep, take only the parts you like) or find a music box in the tavern to lead into 1st/2nd of Keys from the Golden Vault. might make a good pre-made dungeon break from all that sandbox faction courting.
That’s a really good idea, I was thinking about throwing a golden vault mission at them anyways, but I’ll have to take a look at the AI adventure. I’ve had the sourcebooks for them for a while and haven’t done anything in that space yet.
the AcqInc fluff before the first dungeon can be dropped with extreme prejudice. Treat it as a really long faction quest if you like. The characters are asked to check out this sinkhole so they do. It's a really linear obstacle course that could easily end in gold instead of the intended macguffin. I felt like the final boss fight there was weak and easily escaped from so finding piles of broken golden machine parts around would be a great reason to stick around and risk one's neck.
Running this chapter right now with a party who missed the treasures in chapter 1. So, I basically re-hid them all, placing most of them in the manor itself. My players had some great investigation rolls conducting their search and got to add that to their stash. Of course, even that only gets them part of the way there.
It's daunting at first, but if you let your players lead the way, I'm finding that part of the fun I'm discovering how ingenious they are at coming up with their own solutions. Of course, that really depends on your players being strong role-players and problem solvers. This whole adventure is going to be a tough one for murder hobos. So, very group dependent.
There's also some interesting resources out there online for modifying the income rules if the players decide to open up the tavern when it's only partially repaired.
The more into this game I get, the more I find it's really well suited for adapting to whatever your group's play-style is. Do they like dungeoneering? Go send 'em on a treasure quest. Do they like roleplaying with NPCs? Give them opportunities to talk people into pouring money into the joint. When I'm done with this campaign, I can even see myself writing up some DM resources with a grab-bag of different ideas for this chapter.
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DM - Classic Adventures Reborn
Rylan - L1 Human Paladin - Barty's "Princes of the Apocalypse"
The boring but ever-present option is to have a powerful Lord or lady offer them a loan. Of course, it's boring up front, but can open up all kinds of shenanigans depending on who gives them the loan, why they do, and how they want it repaid.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
The boring but ever-present option is to have a powerful Lord or lady offer them a loan. Of course, it's boring up front, but can open up all kinds of shenanigans depending on who gives them the loan, why they do, and how they want it repaid.
Yeah, that’s my worst case back up plan if they don’t take any of the hooks I seed or don’t come up with any ideas on their own of how to make some gold, I’ll have renaer neverember suggest he could float them a loan or connect them with someone who can
I'm discovering another useful way to approach this chapter.
I'm using it to introduce key elements that will come into play for future chapters. For example, my guys just went to go get something appraised and caught a glimpse of the Sea Maiden's Faire. You can have a potential investor be a devotee at the Temple of Gond. When the characters go there to make their pitch, they can spot some niblewrights.
Also a good time to pepper in some of Vault Keys described in Chapter 4. It'll be a lot more rewarding for players to go on that scavenger hunt if they've already come across some of the items earlier in their adventure..
It's worth reading through the adventure and making a checklist of story elements you can use to add background color to anything else your players do. Once that's done you can honestly set up a pretty linear, rail-roady path for your players to follow and there will still be plenty of fun elements that can come into play later in the game to rewarding effect.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM - Classic Adventures Reborn
Rylan - L1 Human Paladin - Barty's "Princes of the Apocalypse"
I'm discovering another useful way to approach this chapter.
I'm using it to introduce key elements that will come into play for future chapters. For example, my guys just went to go get something appraised and caught a glimpse of the Sea Maiden's Faire. You can have a potential investor be a devotee at the Temple of Gond. When the characters go there to make their pitch, they can spot some niblewrights.
Also a good time to pepper in some of Vault Keys described in Chapter 4. It'll be a lot more rewarding for players to go on that scavenger hunt if they've already come across some of the items earlier in their adventure..
It's worth reading through the adventure and making a checklist of story elements you can use to add background color to anything else your players do. Once that's done you can honestly set up a pretty linear, rail-roady path for your players to follow and there will still be plenty of fun elements that can come into play later in the game to rewarding effect.
Thats really good advice, i've been looking at the chapters too much in isolation from each other, but for this adventure there is no reason I can't do exactly that and seed in the various macguffins and hooks for the rest of the adventure, so it is more immersive for my player. Thanks!
I ditched the faction quests. Instead the manor house was a burned out husk of a building. And when they got it, almost immediately thereafter someone from the town legal department shows up and says that they have 48 hours to have the property certified as "Ghost Free" or it is automatically turned over to the city to be razed and turned into a park. Of course, someone from the United Altar Workers Local 340 is available but at a very steep price.
The husk of the building IS haunted.
Turns out the house used to be a brothel. The madame of it was killed in a fire as she refused to leave until she knew all of her workers were out safe. One such worker went out an upper story window and thus everyone DID make it out. Only the spirit of the madam doesn't know it. So they set out to find her to prove to the madam that everyone did, and she can be put to rest.
Sadly it turns out that the last "missing" worker has taken up work as a Rogue for hire and has JUST gone into the Undermountain with Volo on a short expedition. So the party has to head down to catch up with them. (Volo is seen going down with the party after he sees Floon is safe and his assistant is in the process of giving the manor over to the party as payment). They find the rogue, help them escape a few simple combat encounters and bring her back to the manor.
When the spirit is put to rest, the release of positive magic restores the manor to full pre-burn form and the madam remains in ghost form to act as a manager for the building regardless of their business plans for it. When I ran it on stream, the party decided to turn it into a bar/ boarding house/ inn rather than reopening it as a brothel.
This is damn brilliant. One of my player's actually is related to a historical Madam in our town. I can't wait to use some elements of this. Thank you for the inspiration!
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So, I'll start off by acknowledging that I understand WDH is far more open and sandbox than a lot of the written adventures, and it's up to DM's to build a lot of it and fill in the flavor, but I am finding myself a little confused with the second chapter around restoring Trollskull.
I know this chapter is for the players to drive the narrative and get to know the city, but I am a bit confused on how they are supposed to restore Trollskull Manor? They need 1,250 to renovate and get the Tavern up and running. I know a chunk of this will be RPing them getting to know the guilds and factions and interact with the people, but I don't see how they are expected to get the gold to do so? The faction missions all either offer no gold or very minimal gold as reward for completion. Is the idea that as DM I should just augment the rewards to let them accumulate the gold they need? Or should I seed in the opportunity for some side quests and missions they can be hired for? (I'm trying to avoid having them leave the city for any adventures at this stage, we planned this campaign around, and they built their characters around this being a city based campaign)
This is my first time doing a strictly city based campaign, as a player or DM, so maybe it is just my newness to the setting, and it is definitely different than running exploratory type campaigns, but it feels like the second chapter is PARTICULARLY lacking in suggestions/directions/hooks and the rewards for the characters to achieve one of the main ideas of the section, restoring the Manor, unless I am really missing something.
three methods stuck out to me:
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
That’s a really good idea, I was thinking about throwing a golden vault mission at them anyways, but I’ll have to take a look at the AI adventure. I’ve had the sourcebooks for them for a while and haven’t done anything in that space yet.
Chapter 2 has barebones guidelines on wee side missions, basically you run a few missions until you feel the party has dine enough to advance a level or until until the players get board then it’s fireball time.
there’s resources online to pad the missions out, especially if the party shows interest in joining a faction like the harpers. For each mission you can allocate gold, since they are in a city, they could also take a bank loan, which could tie into a wee diversion or back into the main quest if the bank wants the missing gold back?
there’s some great resources on DM guild like “blue alley” where the party can meet some important npcs and get gold.
since chapter 2 can really be as long or short as you and the party want it might be fun to incorporate some player backstories into personal missions? I had a player who’s character was on the run from the local crime guild in their hometown and ended up working with one waterdeep thieves guild whilst being hunted by another. Another player was a newly minted priest so I linked them with the local church and missing artifacts
the AcqInc fluff before the first dungeon can be dropped with extreme prejudice. Treat it as a really long faction quest if you like. The characters are asked to check out this sinkhole so they do. It's a really linear obstacle course that could easily end in gold instead of the intended macguffin. I felt like the final boss fight there was weak and easily escaped from so finding piles of broken golden machine parts around would be a great reason to stick around and risk one's neck.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
Good to know!
Running this chapter right now with a party who missed the treasures in chapter 1. So, I basically re-hid them all, placing most of them in the manor itself. My players had some great investigation rolls conducting their search and got to add that to their stash. Of course, even that only gets them part of the way there.
It's daunting at first, but if you let your players lead the way, I'm finding that part of the fun I'm discovering how ingenious they are at coming up with their own solutions. Of course, that really depends on your players being strong role-players and problem solvers. This whole adventure is going to be a tough one for murder hobos. So, very group dependent.
There's also some interesting resources out there online for modifying the income rules if the players decide to open up the tavern when it's only partially repaired.
The more into this game I get, the more I find it's really well suited for adapting to whatever your group's play-style is. Do they like dungeoneering? Go send 'em on a treasure quest. Do they like roleplaying with NPCs? Give them opportunities to talk people into pouring money into the joint. When I'm done with this campaign, I can even see myself writing up some DM resources with a grab-bag of different ideas for this chapter.
DM - Classic Adventures Reborn
Rylan - L1 Human Paladin - Barty's "Princes of the Apocalypse"
The boring but ever-present option is to have a powerful Lord or lady offer them a loan. Of course, it's boring up front, but can open up all kinds of shenanigans depending on who gives them the loan, why they do, and how they want it repaid.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Yeah, that’s my worst case back up plan if they don’t take any of the hooks I seed or don’t come up with any ideas on their own of how to make some gold, I’ll have renaer neverember suggest he could float them a loan or connect them with someone who can
I'm discovering another useful way to approach this chapter.
I'm using it to introduce key elements that will come into play for future chapters. For example, my guys just went to go get something appraised and caught a glimpse of the Sea Maiden's Faire. You can have a potential investor be a devotee at the Temple of Gond. When the characters go there to make their pitch, they can spot some niblewrights.
Also a good time to pepper in some of Vault Keys described in Chapter 4. It'll be a lot more rewarding for players to go on that scavenger hunt if they've already come across some of the items earlier in their adventure..
It's worth reading through the adventure and making a checklist of story elements you can use to add background color to anything else your players do. Once that's done you can honestly set up a pretty linear, rail-roady path for your players to follow and there will still be plenty of fun elements that can come into play later in the game to rewarding effect.
DM - Classic Adventures Reborn
Rylan - L1 Human Paladin - Barty's "Princes of the Apocalypse"
Thats really good advice, i've been looking at the chapters too much in isolation from each other, but for this adventure there is no reason I can't do exactly that and seed in the various macguffins and hooks for the rest of the adventure, so it is more immersive for my player. Thanks!
So here's what I did:
I ditched the faction quests. Instead the manor house was a burned out husk of a building. And when they got it, almost immediately thereafter someone from the town legal department shows up and says that they have 48 hours to have the property certified as "Ghost Free" or it is automatically turned over to the city to be razed and turned into a park. Of course, someone from the United Altar Workers Local 340 is available but at a very steep price.
The husk of the building IS haunted.
Turns out the house used to be a brothel. The madame of it was killed in a fire as she refused to leave until she knew all of her workers were out safe. One such worker went out an upper story window and thus everyone DID make it out. Only the spirit of the madam doesn't know it. So they set out to find her to prove to the madam that everyone did, and she can be put to rest.
Sadly it turns out that the last "missing" worker has taken up work as a Rogue for hire and has JUST gone into the Undermountain with Volo on a short expedition. So the party has to head down to catch up with them. (Volo is seen going down with the party after he sees Floon is safe and his assistant is in the process of giving the manor over to the party as payment). They find the rogue, help them escape a few simple combat encounters and bring her back to the manor.
When the spirit is put to rest, the release of positive magic restores the manor to full pre-burn form and the madam remains in ghost form to act as a manager for the building regardless of their business plans for it. When I ran it on stream, the party decided to turn it into a bar/ boarding house/ inn rather than reopening it as a brothel.
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This is damn brilliant. One of my player's actually is related to a historical Madam in our town. I can't wait to use some elements of this. Thank you for the inspiration!