ksbsnowowl
2017-07-17, 12:20 AM
I'm about to start running Bastion of Broken Souls for the last bit of my 3-year 3.5 campaign. As we are drawing near the end of this one, I wanted some feedback on what the players liked and wanted in the next campaign. Three of my four players each listed political intrigue as a campaign style they'd like to have (the fourth is a very old school, dungeon crasher type player; give him the barest framework of a plot, tell him why the monsters are evil, and he'll go kill them).
Political intrigue is not really my forté. I can improvise on the fly as needed to a semi-respectable degree, but for a campaign that will be featuring this style of play, I really feel I'm going to at least need the backbones of a few modules (or a full Adventure Path) to gird my abilities in this realm. It also wouldn't hurt if the plots leave time/room for forays into some dungeons from time to time (perhaps related to the major plot at hand).
I have a quite a few modules that I've purchased over the years and not had the opportunity to run, and a few of them seem like they might involve some decent role play aspects, or at least leave room for the DM to insert such things, but "filling in the blanks" myself would be defeating the point of getting some adventures that already provide some mapped-out plots of this type.
Here is the list of things I have available that seem like they might meet my needs, at least somewhat. Any insight as to their "political intriguiness" would be appreciated, as would suggestions of other products to look into tracking down.
Shackled City Adventure Path - Right now this seems like my top contender, and I'm starting to read through it. But I've never actually read through any of it before, so I might just have a wrong impression of what this "city adventure" compiled module series is really like.
Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde - I bought the PDF years ago, but something about its rendering or watermarking is just terrible. It's horribly slow to load pages on my tablet, or even on my computer (I've seen other complaints about this PDF being like this, so it's not just me). This one mostly just seems as if I would have space to inject political intrigue if I wanted; the module itself doesn't provide much.
Lost City of Barakus - The city has a great sandbox feel, and the PC's could go investigate all sorts of different things, some of which might be social intrigue, but I don't recall how much is (I read through most of the city part years ago when I bought it), and I know the big part is the giant dungeon crawl outside the city.
Voyage of the Golden Dragon - This 7th level Eberron module has some decent social interaction type stuff, along with good bits of action thrown in via side quests, but I get the feeling my Players are not really in the mood for an Eberron game. I could probably reskin it as a normal sailing vessel in a non-Eberron world (but the idea of a luxury liner in anywhere but Eberron just comes off a bit odd).
It's too bad that none of them are really into the Eberron vibe; the dragonmarked houses seem like they'd be ripe for political intrigue, along with the various countries.
Any other suggestions of things I should track down that have good interaction/investigation type plots? Really, with political intrigue type plots, I could even make use of older stuff (2nd edition, etc) or even stuff from other game systems, and just make my own stats as needed. What I really need help with is plots and insights into NPC actions/reactions.
The party will be of four players, ideally starting at level 1 (though three of the players did indicate their favorite levels of play were 7th or even higher).
I suppose if nothing else, I could just take the time to rewatch Game of Thrones, map out the major back-stabbing plots, and use that for a framework. But all my players watch it, so they'd probably catch on quickly if I didn't turn a bunch of it on its head.
Political intrigue is not really my forté. I can improvise on the fly as needed to a semi-respectable degree, but for a campaign that will be featuring this style of play, I really feel I'm going to at least need the backbones of a few modules (or a full Adventure Path) to gird my abilities in this realm. It also wouldn't hurt if the plots leave time/room for forays into some dungeons from time to time (perhaps related to the major plot at hand).
I have a quite a few modules that I've purchased over the years and not had the opportunity to run, and a few of them seem like they might involve some decent role play aspects, or at least leave room for the DM to insert such things, but "filling in the blanks" myself would be defeating the point of getting some adventures that already provide some mapped-out plots of this type.
Here is the list of things I have available that seem like they might meet my needs, at least somewhat. Any insight as to their "political intriguiness" would be appreciated, as would suggestions of other products to look into tracking down.
Shackled City Adventure Path - Right now this seems like my top contender, and I'm starting to read through it. But I've never actually read through any of it before, so I might just have a wrong impression of what this "city adventure" compiled module series is really like.
Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde - I bought the PDF years ago, but something about its rendering or watermarking is just terrible. It's horribly slow to load pages on my tablet, or even on my computer (I've seen other complaints about this PDF being like this, so it's not just me). This one mostly just seems as if I would have space to inject political intrigue if I wanted; the module itself doesn't provide much.
Lost City of Barakus - The city has a great sandbox feel, and the PC's could go investigate all sorts of different things, some of which might be social intrigue, but I don't recall how much is (I read through most of the city part years ago when I bought it), and I know the big part is the giant dungeon crawl outside the city.
Voyage of the Golden Dragon - This 7th level Eberron module has some decent social interaction type stuff, along with good bits of action thrown in via side quests, but I get the feeling my Players are not really in the mood for an Eberron game. I could probably reskin it as a normal sailing vessel in a non-Eberron world (but the idea of a luxury liner in anywhere but Eberron just comes off a bit odd).
It's too bad that none of them are really into the Eberron vibe; the dragonmarked houses seem like they'd be ripe for political intrigue, along with the various countries.
Any other suggestions of things I should track down that have good interaction/investigation type plots? Really, with political intrigue type plots, I could even make use of older stuff (2nd edition, etc) or even stuff from other game systems, and just make my own stats as needed. What I really need help with is plots and insights into NPC actions/reactions.
The party will be of four players, ideally starting at level 1 (though three of the players did indicate their favorite levels of play were 7th or even higher).
I suppose if nothing else, I could just take the time to rewatch Game of Thrones, map out the major back-stabbing plots, and use that for a framework. But all my players watch it, so they'd probably catch on quickly if I didn't turn a bunch of it on its head.