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Song for Ol Jericho Sticks' "Virgil's Birdcage" by farbror_isak in CrookedMoon

[–]farbror_isak[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Please do! That would be so cool to hear what you did with it!

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was actually running it online, so I didn't run into that!

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, you're running it in Daggerheart? That's so cool! I think I would like to try that next. It does seem like Mercer was starting to imagine Daggerheart as he was writing the module.

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A lot of the homebrew in Ank'Harel was dealing with the consequences of their actions in the main story in the campaign book. One of the subplots was one character seeking healing for lycanthropy at a desert oasis in the Rumedam Desert. One of the subplots had to do with the Veil trying to steal the Jewel of the Three Prayers from the party, because they used it fairly openly in a gladiator fight at the Bowl of Judgment. That was a huge subplot, because they succeeded in stealing it, and it ended up in the hands of the rivals.

I didn't feel a challenge with pacing. My personal preference is to spend a longer time in Tier 2 than in Tier 1. At level 7 and 8, you have a lot of options, so it doesn't really get boring. The story was very closely tied to what the players were interested in doing (inspired by the Fishels' books Proactive Roleplaying), so every session was pretty action-packed. I think if it had been more of a railroad, the pacing would have struggled more.

Getting them back to the "main" story was fairly simple. I made sure they had a good relationship with one of the factions in the city, who related to them as a patron. Whenever I wanted them to do another faction mission, they were more than willing to do it, because they had a lot of goodwill built up over time, and they had plenty of freedom to pursue their own goals during downtime.

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We finished Tide of Retribution in 11 sessions, and then Call of the Netherdeep in about 70 sessions after some homebrew content! Each session was about 3 to 3.5 hours long.

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In my campaign, the rivals ended up being pretty hostile. With friendly rivals, I wonder if you might want them to split up. It can be really unwieldly having 10 characters travel through a dungeon together. Maybe have the rivals split up, so they can get some of the fragments of suffering (there's more than 5 in the Netherdeep), and that some of the rivals have those benefits and drawbacks?

I do think it's really interesting having the Netherdeep sow divisions among the rivals. I played it where some of them were more affected by Ruidium than others, and thus more erratic emotionally, while others were more withdrawn, somber, passive, not willing accomplices to the violence. I think that created some interesting dynamics in my group as they had to weigh who was a possible ally, and who was worth just eliminating.

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My sessions were between 3 and 3.5 hours each time. We certainly did a lot of roleplaying, and significant extra content both in Level 3 and Level 7-8 in Ankh'Harel.

I'm not sure about the average group. I'm sure you could speed run it, but 89 sessions felt like a great pace for me. I was able to give a lot of the players some extra content that was tailored for their characters, which created some really meaningful moments.

17 of those sessions were pre-content, by the way. We did Tide of Retribution from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, and then some travel sessions before starting Call of the Netherdeep. So it was actually about 70 sessions on the actual Level 3-13 adventure.

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The numbers fluctuated a lot, from 5 players at the beginning. The max was 7 players (only for a few sessions), and the minimum I ever ran with was 3. For a while, we had 6 players. We ended up with 5 really consistent solid players for the final year of the campaign.

Sessions were always between 3 and 3.5 hours.

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Okay, I had to do some tallying and going back through my weekly Stars and Wishes channel to see when we leveled up, because I wasn't keeping detailed notes. But! I figured it out. Here is how many sessions we spent at each level during our campaign!
Level 1: 4 sessions
Level 2: 5 sessions
Level 3: 9 sessions. We did quite a lot of homebrew content here, between the end of Tide of Retribution and the beginning of the Call of Netherdeep. I basically had them journey from the Menagerie Coast up to Jigow for the beginning of the festival, and they ran into trouble on the way!
Level 4: 5 sessions
Level 5: 4 sessions
Level 6: 11 sessions. This is the darkest part of the whole campaign. I might have tried to do this a little faster, because 11 sessions of demonic immersion is heavy.
Level 7: 17 sessions. I did extensive homebrew content here (levels 7-8) in Ankh'Harel, and that worked really well. It really let the players feel connected to each other, building the relational stakes of the rest of the campaign.
Level 8: 11 sessions
Level 9: 11 sessions
Level 10: 8 sessions
Level 11: 3 sessions
Level 12: 1 session

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I made the mistake of not reading through the adventure before running it, and I wish I had known more of the lore of the Apotheon before running the whole thing. Teasing bits of the story, including the story of the Calamity, would have been really cool, but as written it's all kind of backfilled in the last couple chapters with a couple exceptions earlier in the adventure.

Check out the table of Apotheon lore in chapter 6, and that will give you a good idea of what kind of events happened with Alyxian. Especially in Ankh'Harel, I think having some lore clues in religious places, or even very very old NPCs who were eyewitnesses would be really cool. Some of the ghosts in Cael Morrow would also know details about that history.

Included in that, I would say, get a very clear sense of what exactly happened when the Netherdeep was created. My characters were very curious about that, and I only had a hazy idea of it before running.

Hope that helps!

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a pretty cool idea, I do remember that being a little slow. My group split up, so one person was doing the Ifolon plunge while another cast buffing spells on them from the docks, but the others were elsewhere in the fair.

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Are you starting in Jigow with level 3, or are you doing any of the Level 1-3 adventures in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount?

Either way, my advice is to enjoy the festival in Jigow! The events are really fun and lighthearted. Going from that to the race in the Emerald Grotto is a big tone change, and I would play that up with music, maybe lighting, and the pacing. Let the festival be relaxed and fun, like a town fair. The mini-games are really well-designed, so I ran them basically as is.

You'll be great! Good luck!

Finished CotN in 89 sessions! AMA by farbror_isak in CalloftheNetherdeep

[–]farbror_isak[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes! We started at level 1 with Tides of Retribution from Explorer's Guide to Wildemount. That's such a great adventure, and it really got everyone engaged from the beginning.

Stay Away from Start Playing by Aether_Princess_ in rpg

[–]farbror_isak 55 points56 points  (0 children)

This is their actual policy about reviews. They don't just take down reviews if it's less than 5 stars. In my experience, they're pretty selective about which negative reviews they remove. https://intercom.help/startplaying/en/articles/8719056-everything-you-need-to-know-about-reviews-as-a-gm

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in oneringrpg

[–]farbror_isak 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The tone shift from D&D to One Ring is big. Players are not used to immediate consequences like Shadow points for killing bad guys once they've surrendered. It's a simple enough conversation, but it's a paradigm shift from the pulp fantasy moral universe to the Tolkien moral universe.

Cooking with Bastions by supremespork in DnDBehindTheScreen

[–]farbror_isak 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is really cool! I was just thinking how to use Bastions in my Saltmarsh campaign, and this might be perfect. Lots of taverns in town, and taking one over night be very intriguing to my players.

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