For those who ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist how engaged were your players when they got Trollskull Manor in turning it into a tavern or some sort of useful property?
Did they participate in the decision-making on what to do or as the DM did you hand them notes the manor has been restored here is what comes with it? Did they even care that they have the manor?
My players enjoyed turning the Manor into a home-base of sorts, and I made sure to give them a little breathing room between when they gained control of it and when I moved to the chapter where the fireballs begin to fly in front of their yard. I let them get to know the neighborhood and meet the various neighbors, that way they had something of a connection to the area and could lean on those NPCs or some things during the rest of the adventure.
Once Dragon Heist was over, it was still a nice place for them to come back to between trips down to the Mad Mage dungeon. By then, they had developed a support staff of NPCs to run things while they were away.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
My players enjoyed turning the Manor into a home-base of sorts, and I made sure to give them a little breathing room between when they gained control of it and when I moved to the chapter where the fireballs begin to fly in front of their yard. I let them get to know the neighborhood and meet the various neighbors, that way they had something of a connection to the area and could lean on those NPCs or some things during the rest of the adventure.
Once Dragon Heist was over, it was still a nice place for them to come back to between trips down to the Mad Mage dungeon. By then, they had developed a support staff of NPCs to run things while they were away.
Thanks for the feedback on this.
I have a split group some people just want me to do all the work setting it up because they want nothing to do with the business. One even said they didn't want monthly expense report role-playing-- as if that would ever happen. The other side is pretty interested in the NPC side of things as well as what to do with the tavern so I feel fortunate that there is some interest and it is not all on my shoulders.
We are about to hit the "Fireball" chapter, and the party has not even ventured to meet the people in the Alley. I even have a map with all the numbered locations, they see quite often, for the NPC and it just seemed to be ignored. Oh well, maybe they will get more invested with the Alley with all the dead bodies flying around.
Questions for you since it seems like you've run through the whole adventure.
1) Did you ever use the Lair chapters or did you just run through Chapters 1-4? Which season did you run?
2) Did the party keep the gold? I can see the game ruined if they worked to keep all 500,000gp so I'm looking at ways where they get a small amount of the gold but then the rest goes back to the city.
I mostly stuck o the main chapter progression, unless my players wanted to venture out and dig into a villain's lair a bit, which didn't happen very often. I think at most we spent a little bit of extra time at the Cassalanter's estate, and maybe more time than usual in the Xanathar Guild area, but mostly because my players didn't realize who the main villain really was for our playthrough until near the end. I ran Maestro's Fall, with Jarlaxle as the main villain.
After a little bit of waffling the party did end p turning back in the gold. They didn't want to have to deal with issues stemming from keeping it since we were sticking around for Dungeon of the Mad Mage. They were happy with their "finders fee" as the prize. If you read the "Adventure Conclusion" section, you will see tha they get a pay-out as well as some interested parties in said payout.
Laeral Silverhand is prepared to let the characters keep one-tenth of the treasure (50,000 gp) for themselves.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I mostly stuck o the main chapter progression, unless my players wanted to venture out and dig into a villain's lair a bit, which didn't happen very often. I think at most we spent a little bit of extra time at the Cassalanter's estate, and maybe more time than usual in the Xanathar Guild area, but mostly because my players didn't realize who the main villain really was for our playthrough until near the end. I ran Maestro's Fall, with Jarlaxle as the main villain.
After a little bit of waffling the party did end p turning back in the gold. They didn't want to have to deal with issues stemming from keeping it since we were sticking around for Dungeon of the Mad Mage. They were happy with their "finders fee" as the prize. If you read the "Adventure Conclusion" section, you will see tha they get a pay-out as well as some interested parties in said payout.
Laeral Silverhand is prepared to let the characters keep one-tenth of the treasure (50,000 gp) for themselves.
The damage my the party of five will do with 50,000gp I'm really going to have to control what magic items they are going to plan on buying. Might be time to look at Xanathar's Guide for buying items look at rarity availability.
In the same Conclusions section, the game does offer a few ways to talk the party out of about 22,000 of that gold, as well as offers some ideas about other ways to bleed some out of them.
For those who ran Waterdeep: Dragon Heist how engaged were your players when they got Trollskull Manor in turning it into a tavern or some sort of useful property?
Did they participate in the decision-making on what to do or as the DM did you hand them notes the manor has been restored here is what comes with it? Did they even care that they have the manor?
My players enjoyed turning the Manor into a home-base of sorts, and I made sure to give them a little breathing room between when they gained control of it and when I moved to the chapter where the fireballs begin to fly in front of their yard. I let them get to know the neighborhood and meet the various neighbors, that way they had something of a connection to the area and could lean on those NPCs or some things during the rest of the adventure.
Once Dragon Heist was over, it was still a nice place for them to come back to between trips down to the Mad Mage dungeon. By then, they had developed a support staff of NPCs to run things while they were away.
Thanks for the feedback on this.
I have a split group some people just want me to do all the work setting it up because they want nothing to do with the business. One even said they didn't want monthly expense report role-playing-- as if that would ever happen. The other side is pretty interested in the NPC side of things as well as what to do with the tavern so I feel fortunate that there is some interest and it is not all on my shoulders.
We are about to hit the "Fireball" chapter, and the party has not even ventured to meet the people in the Alley. I even have a map with all the numbered locations, they see quite often, for the NPC and it just seemed to be ignored. Oh well, maybe they will get more invested with the Alley with all the dead bodies flying around.
Questions for you since it seems like you've run through the whole adventure.
1) Did you ever use the Lair chapters or did you just run through Chapters 1-4? Which season did you run?
2) Did the party keep the gold? I can see the game ruined if they worked to keep all 500,000gp so I'm looking at ways where they get a small amount of the gold but then the rest goes back to the city.
The damage my the party of five will do with 50,000gp I'm really going to have to control what magic items they are going to plan on buying. Might be time to look at Xanathar's Guide for buying items look at rarity availability.
In the same Conclusions section, the game does offer a few ways to talk the party out of about 22,000 of that gold, as well as offers some ideas about other ways to bleed some out of them.