[OotA] Improving Sloobludop (Spoilers)

[Goober4473]

Next session, my players should reach Sloobludop, and while I like a lot of the basic setup of the place, I feel like I can do better in terms of what the players are actually doing. The given "quest" here is to fake being sacrifices for the Deep Father in order to infiltrate the enemy, but I'm honestly not sure how that helps anyone. It seems to mostly serve as a way to advance to the ritual event, and smart players will probably begin taking out enemies long before that, rather than get dragged into the middle of a huge pile of enemies at the sacrifice.

My thought so far is to have the place be pretty entirely under the control of the cult of Leemooggoogoon after Bloppblippodd received her vision and united her people under a new banner. Her father, and those still loyal to Blibdoolpoolp, have officially "converted", but plot against the new regime.

Enter the players, who may have encountered a strike force on their way in, who tried to nab them for sacrifice, but once they reach the town, no one will touch them in the open, for fear of losing the favor of the people, but neither will they let the potential sacrifices go very far should they leave. After being contracted by Ploopploopeen or Glooglugogg, the players need to navigate the tense social conditions of Sloobludop while finding a way to return power to those loyal to the Sea Mother, whether by killing Bloppblippodd or by swaying public opinion. At that point, the desperate cultist perform their ritual, and Leemooggoogoon reveals his true form.

Has anyone done anything like this before? What were the best and worst parts of Sloobludop for you? Any ideas for specific challenges the players could face in order to affect public opinion?

[TheRedTemplar]

I would love to help you on this but the one time I had a party travel to the fish town they nuked the bastards to hell and back. Literally. I'm not even kidding, they used dozens of oil barrels, stealth checks, and a necklace of fireballs. They killed the entire town.

I suppose my best advice is this:

Don't let them blow up the town. They'll probably regret it.

[DMBlackhart]

Next session, my players should reach Sloobludop, and while I like a lot of the basic setup of the place, I feel like I can do better in terms of what the players are actually doing. The given "quest" here is to fake being sacrifices for the Deep Father in order to infiltrate the enemy, but I'm honestly not sure how that helps anyone. It seems to mostly serve as a way to advance to the ritual event, and smart players will probably begin taking out enemies long before that, rather than get dragged into the middle of a huge pile of enemies at the sacrifice.

My thought so far is to have the place be pretty entirely under the control of the cult of Leemooggoogoon after Bloppblippodd received her vision and united her people under a new banner. Her father, and those still loyal to Blibdoolpoolp, have officially "converted", but plot against the new regime.

Enter the players, who may have encountered a strike force on their way in, who tried to nab them for sacrifice, but once they reach the town, no one will touch them in the open, for fear of losing the favor of the people, but neither will they let the potential sacrifices go very far should they leave. After being contracted by Ploopploopeen or Glooglugogg, the players need to navigate the tense social conditions of Sloobludop while finding a way to return power to those loyal to the Sea Mother, whether by killing Bloppblippodd or by swaying public opinion. At that point, the desperate cultist perform their ritual, and Leemooggoogoon reveals his true form.

Has anyone done anything like this before? What were the best and worst parts of Sloobludop for you? Any ideas for specific challenges the players could face in order to affect public opinion?

"Like this", no.

But I did do a lot of reworking and improve because, as yourself, I disliked the simplicity and lethality of what is honestly a rather shoe-horned encounter. It's not something even green players would reasonably do.

So, what I did was play off Shuushaar's Mysticism early; (I don't think he's ever directly expressed as being a mystic, but I gave him 1 level of it out of the UA to play test the class a bit).

Building on this, I made hhis imprisonment basically a bi-product of his strange awakened self. I initiated a cultural/theological/civil war in town between the two leading powers, Hard to Pronounce Fish Clergy leader 1, And Hard to Pronounce Fish Clergy leader 2.

So with some quick Improve I basically made Shuushaar the betrothed/interest/lover of the (hard to pronounce) female fish's mother (Seriously I am not spelling these names, one session was bad enough). She was effectively working in the shadows to usurp the power her daughter (or if I mistook the relationship, that's what it is now) which was stolen from her to begin with.

The players watched Shuushaar get captured by guards early on, being used as the sacrifice in place of the PCs.

The entire adventure than unfolded as the PCs trying to save him (they came to love the fishy bastard), discover the twisted truth of Leemoogoogoon, and put the proper hard to pronounce fish leader back in power.

This all ultimately led to absolute failure where they ended up smack dab in the middle of the ritual,surrounded by enemies with Demogorgon about to arise. On the plus side, they saved Shuushaar, gutted (lol) the fish-daughter evil cult lady, and thanks to wild magic, easily slaughter a REALLY hard encounter.

So, end results were basically the same, but they enjoyed the intrigue and plot and characters more this way. And it lasted a full session compared to the half-session or so I usually see Sluupbludop last.

Hope this helped.