I'm new to DMing and I decided to run an adventure based on an existing module that is modified to suit my needs. My players and I decided to play through "Icewind dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden". There are going to be some spoilers to the plot of this module from now on, be mindful. I don't really like playing through the first levels, I would really appreciate if my players fought something really dangerous in the frozen wastes of the valley. I now have a fifth level group of 6 players. So, most of the first level quests had to be changed if I wanted to use them. I decided to completely rewrite Cold Hearted Killer and make this now murder mystery a so-called chapter 1. My players arrived in Easthaven and our next session will start from them spectating the execution of Dzaan, with whole town present for it. And I had this idea in my head of making an assasin's creed-like stealth mission, when my players see something suspicious in the crowd and have to investigate it without being noticed or have to follow somebody suspicios. Even more, I really want to keep the dynamic and the tension of these moments in Assasin's creed when you have to slowly yet decisively walk between groups of monks to blend in with them. But I really have no clue how to make it feel interesting and not railroading my players into solving all the mysteries. And I do understand that such pacing is hard to achieve, especially in D&D, but I want to try. Maybe I could foreshadow something, such as other villains of the story? I mostly left them unchanged, so we have Auril, a clan of dwarves that gathers cursed metal shards to build a mech dragon, some powerful wizards (in my case from the Empire) and the dangers of Netherese ruins. There are also some folks such as goliath clans, yeti, different shapeshifters and other interesting pals.
So one option is to treat the surveillance as a sort of tactical puzzle. Your rogue or any character with the urban bounty hunter or city watch backgrounds could be aware of this technique:
You can work in NPC distractions amongst the crowd to make it a bit more challenging or tense.
In the pretty good movie The International, there's a scene where you get to see it dramatized. IIRC it worked really well until it turned out the subject of the surveillance was pretty adept at counter-surveillance so the soft pursuit ended in an epic gun battle destroying much of the Guggenheim museum's famous interior.
Re: the video, I didn't go over it too closely, but it sounds enough like the abc method as it'd be presented in a text book or classroom presentation.
I'm new to DMing and I decided to run an adventure based on an existing module that is modified to suit my needs. My players and I decided to play through "Icewind dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden". There are going to be some spoilers to the plot of this module from now on, be mindful. I don't really like playing through the first levels, I would really appreciate if my players fought something really dangerous in the frozen wastes of the valley. I now have a fifth level group of 6 players. So, most of the first level quests had to be changed if I wanted to use them. I decided to completely rewrite Cold Hearted Killer and make this now murder mystery a so-called chapter 1. My players arrived in Easthaven and our next session will start from them spectating the execution of Dzaan, with whole town present for it. And I had this idea in my head of making an assasin's creed-like stealth mission, when my players see something suspicious in the crowd and have to investigate it without being noticed or have to follow somebody suspicios. Even more, I really want to keep the dynamic and the tension of these moments in Assasin's creed when you have to slowly yet decisively walk between groups of monks to blend in with them. But I really have no clue how to make it feel interesting and not railroading my players into solving all the mysteries. And I do understand that such pacing is hard to achieve, especially in D&D, but I want to try. Maybe I could foreshadow something, such as other villains of the story? I mostly left them unchanged, so we have Auril, a clan of dwarves that gathers cursed metal shards to build a mech dragon, some powerful wizards (in my case from the Empire) and the dangers of Netherese ruins. There are also some folks such as goliath clans, yeti, different shapeshifters and other interesting pals.
So one option is to treat the surveillance as a sort of tactical puzzle. Your rogue or any character with the urban bounty hunter or city watch backgrounds could be aware of this technique:
You can work in NPC distractions amongst the crowd to make it a bit more challenging or tense.
In the pretty good movie The International, there's a scene where you get to see it dramatized. IIRC it worked really well until it turned out the subject of the surveillance was pretty adept at counter-surveillance so the soft pursuit ended in an epic gun battle destroying much of the Guggenheim museum's famous interior.
Re: the video, I didn't go over it too closely, but it sounds enough like the abc method as it'd be presented in a text book or classroom presentation.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.