Looking for: Advice on Running Ptolus

[Pink]

Alright, so In a couple weeks I will be running a campaign set in Ptolus, Monte Cook's fairly epic one city setting. Now though I've given some attempt to It I'm afraid I haven't completely read the 800 page gaming book, so among asking for any advice other DMs might have in how to better run it, are there any particular chapters or parts that I should read over often and know almost by heart?
My game plan is to run through the intro adventure in the later chapters of the book and then mix in Night of Dissolution and maybe some of the rat people plot in, and from there go in what ever direction the campaign seems to head, whether delving into the banewarrens or taking on the Mob.
So, anybody DMed or played in this before, care to give me some tips and what you found fun about your experience?

[Pink]

*poke*

I'm afraid this got lost fairly quickly, so trying to give it one last try to get some advice. Even if it's not directly Ptolus related but to city campaigns I'd like to hear it. If it dies against I guess I'll leave this thread to die, but I'd like it to have another chance here.

[Tiki Snakes]

I have no advice on running Ptolus, but one of my first campaigns as a player was Ptolus.

Our DM was, eh, well. I've heard Ptolus described as a really high magic setting, adventurers everywhere, and so on. Let's just say, we were a wee bit behind wealth by level. Eheh. I pretty much started around level 2, almost at wbl, and over time got poorer. I was less wealthy as a level 5 character. >_>

At that point, I tried to sell my only magic item, a rod of ropes or so on, to try and get a magical weapon and, like, actually stand a chance in combat. I was robbed on my way to the shop.

The campaign kind of stalled a little after that, due to rl issues and so on. I did not weep.

[Pink]

Tch, that does sound a terrible shame. Note to self, give players treasure.

[Another_Poet]

I haven't used Ptolus, but am currently GMing a major urban campaign in RL (see the "enter the sewers here" link in my sig). And I'm about to start a mostly urban PbP as well.

Here is the best advice I can give you. Have a good discussion with your players beforehand and work out what limitations they're going to have.

For instance, in my Sewers campaign I tol them the rule was none of their characters had ever been to Five Fingers (the city) before for any reason. Didn't live there as a kid, never apprenticed there, didn't even visit it on shore leave. They'd never been there. I discussed this with my players beforehand and they thought it was fine, especially since we were also trying a new setting (as are you) and it would allow them to slowly learn more and more by firsthand experience - they are newbs to the setting IC as well as OoC.

In my PbP I told them their characters are trying out for the local duke's evil death squad/secret enforcers/spec ops military unit. That gives a pretty clear sense of their approximate standing, and what kinds of trouble they can expect to get into.

The reason I think this is so important is that an urban campaign has no inherent plot control. Say what you want about railroading, it's how we DM's keep ourselves sane and able to run the game. Having some idea of what next week's session entails is crucial to designing interesting encounters of the combat- or non-combat-variety.

In a dungeon, that's easy enough. Once the players have accepted a single hook and enter the dungeon, they might choose door 1, 2 or 3 or even to bug out and headback to Town Z which is so small it won't offer many cool items or other plot hooks. You can plan pretty well and even if the PCs go off the plan, which is fun, they're close enough to your story that you can figure it out on the fly.

In a city, every friggin' house presents a plot hook. Your challenge is to, on the one hand, keep that alive for a sense of scale and intrigue. It really is cool if the random encounter that mugged you on the way to your plot-relevant quest is two thugs from a local gang who are causing all kinds of trouble in the Candlelight District. That feels like a city. But it's not so cool if the PCs decide to put your world-ending bad guy on hold to go wipe out some gang of street urchins. It's hard to change gears so quickly without either losing either game quality, or your own sanity.

So put some initial limits on the party, but only ones you've talked over with them. Find out in advance if they are all do-gooders working for a church, or if they are from an enemy kingdom and hate the local government. Ask what kind of adventure they want to have - political intrigue, murder mysteries, local law enforcement, building a street gang, smuggling, gladiators, assassination jobs, fame and glory as local heroes - what do they want? Elicit some sense of agreement from them that if you put x in front of them, they'll more or less keep going after x.

And then carefully craft several plot hooks which lead directly or indirectly to x. Maybe even add a few red herrings, jobs that are unrelated (but don't pay well or go against the characters' moral beliefs - preferably both). The players then feel like they have some real choice in taking up Shiny Quest X. You can even have a false lead that puts them on the wrong side of Quest X and they have to figure out for themselves that their boss is the bad guy. Or their boss's boss.

That's a lot of words to chew on, but the idea is simple enough. Make sure the players all agree to a basic premise going into the city so they can limit their compulsions to look behind every door. When they do stray a little from the plot you can relax and have some fun RPing or even combat and know that, within a session or so, they'll be back to the main quest. You made sure it interests them before you even started and now they want to know how it turns out.

I took a full gaming session to do character generation and work out these kinds of details, the week before we actually started our game. Maybe that'll work for you, or maybe some other medium is good, but one way or another I think you'll find that discussion invaluable.

One other thing. Be sure to give them some safe NPCs and safe locations. Some people who will never, ever betray them - an innkeeper who is just a really great person, a local town guard captain who really admires what they're trying to do, an employer who has never had such impressive hired hands before - something. PCs tend to come to urban campaigns with a lot of "dungeon jitters" and their instinct is to doubt (or even attack) every NPC who offers help. If your plot actually contains some NPC betrayals, it'll only get worse. So make it clear early on that there are some NPCs who are just awesome to have around and will do everything they can to help the PCs with no strings attached. It'll really change their attitude within even 2 or 3 sessions.

Good luck!

ap

[Oracle_Hunter]

I was a player in a 1-10 LV Ptolus campaign. Now, I was on the other side of the screen and played those very modules, so hopefully this is helpful.

Or DM is a master when it comes to modules - he learns them well enough to run them basically from memory. By and large, he ran them straight so that means the modules are going to be pretty OK without tweaking. Um, the intro encounter with the half-fiend was really frustrating but I think it was probably a good way to get the party to hate him.

Gosh, it is hard to think of anything unique to Ptolus that made it fun. I'll shoot my DM an email to see what he has to say.

Did you have any more specific questions before I do?

[Pink]

Poet: Thanks for that write up there. I was planning on doing a full session character creation, however it was mostly from the perspective of where they came from without as much thought as to where they're going. I'll be sure to ask them about what they want to see come from this campaign.

Oracle: My main worry is that with such a massive book I may miss out on using some of the well-written and detailed features that Ptolus offers. I know I should try as much as possible to memorize the module part of it, however I'm also wondering if there's any particular section of the city or NPCs (Other than whoever becomes the obvious villian) That I should also try to commit to memory. Any particular spot that the Players tended to use or visit that wasn't expected.

Or, for that matter, anything your DM used to help keep himself organized. If you can get something that'd be wonderful.

Thanks for the advice so far, keep it coming :smallsmile:

[Oracle_Hunter]

Oracle: My main worry is that with such a massive book I may miss out on using some of the well-written and detailed features that Ptolus offers. I know I should try as much as possible to memorize the module part of it, however I'm also wondering if there's any particular section of the city or NPCs (Other than whoever becomes the obvious villian) That I should also try to commit to memory. Any particular spot that the Players tended to use or visit that wasn't expected.
Ah. Well, he actually had pre-ordered the Ptolus book, so he got a spiffy full-sized map of the city - very helpful.

Aside from that, well, your PCs aren't going to think about going someplace you don't know about; more often than not we just went to places we knew about.

The area around the Grand Stairway is obviously an important area to know, as is anything involving the Delver's Guild. To help manage NPCs, get your players' characters in advance to see what kind of people they should know - a Guild Thief means reading up on a Guild, a cleric means reading up on their religious institutions, and so on. For the Night of Dissolution module, read up on the tech-priests (they dress like Matrix rejects :smalltongue:), chaos cults, and all chaos-tech rules. Also, the Ogre Magi who buys sentient creatures to redeem them? Learn all about that guy - your players will be capturing all kinds of bad guys for some easy gold :smallbiggrin:

Oh, and don't give the Ptolus book to your players to flip through. They should learn about the city through experience - and this way they won't catch you flat-footed too often. :smallamused: