this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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There's a great podcast I started listening to before running it called Tabletop Gold which can really help you see how the adventure can play out, as well as some cool twists you can incorporate into the story. It's a delight to listen to as well.
I'd also recommend from my own experience working with your players to come up with backstory connections to the town of Otari and to the city of Absalom. The adventure is primarily set in Otari, and it features an existential threat to Absolom as the main driver of the plot. When I started the campaign, I told my players that they needed to include in their backstory some kind of personal connection to the city of Absolom, as well as a reason for why their character is in Otari.
I already have two locals who actually grew up in Otari. The bard and the barbarian grew up together as step sisters and are friends with the various townspeople. The other two are friends with the two and have also been offered the fish camp as a place to stay. So I'm feeling quite solid for the local connections that will motivate the investigation.
I will definitely look into that podcast, thanks.
I also used the fish camp adventure as a base for the party and they love it. Last session they decided to finally deal with the ghost that haunts one of the rooms, and they decided maybe the mayor could help them out.
I took it as an opportunity to introduce Doriana to the party as they hadn't met her yet and I want them to get some face time with her before they finish level 4. So the party goes to the mayor's house thinking they'll get an audience with him, and while they're waiting for him, Doriana wanders out and has a conversation with the party and they can instantly tell there's something special about her.
Then one of the players is like "what if we bring this girl to the ghost?" And in my head I was like "fuck yeah, who better to help exorcise a ghost than a psychic?" But I kept my mouth shut and let the players run with the idea. They ended up getting the mayor's permission to bring her on a "field trip" to their fishing cabin, and I got to play out how the ghost possessed her as soon as she entered the room which I figured made it easier to talk to and negotiate with.
The players absolutely loved this interaction and they straight up asked me afterward if that was the "intended" solution to the ghost room and I was like "fuck no, these characters aren't even from the same adventure" which made the players absolutely overjoyed. They loved the idea that the game is enough of a sandbox that they could just find and use different mechanics from different stories to solve a complex problem.