Seerow
2021-02-02, 07:00 PM
So I've been on break from DMing since quarantine started, mostly because setting stuff up for online play was such a huge pain to me I couldn't deal with it. I eventually gave up and let someone else take over.
However recently I came across a Rise of the Runelords pack, that has all of the maps and statblocks from the adventure pre-loaded and ready to run, and for that kind of convenience I'm willing to pay. I've got the anniversary edition book and have been reading through it, as well as the roll20 pack. So for the most part I am ready to go.
However when looking around for advice about the adventure path, I find it hard to find any discussion surrounding it more recently than a decade old, which is a little weird for me coming off Kingmaker (which still has a pretty active community probably at least partially due to the video game renewing interest), so I figured I'd try asking here and see if anyone had run it and had any advice.
Major things I'm looking for in particular (though any general advice is also appreciated):
-What information should players have access to prior to starting the adventure? For example, I had no idea what a Runelord was until I went and did some Wiki diving. They get mentioned casually early on in Part 1 (there's a statue of one of the Runelords and a relatively easy knowledge check will identify/name drop him), does this mean the story of ancient Thassilion and the Runelords is something that the average person (or at least the average educated person) will likely know about? (Note: This is coming from the perspective of a group who has very little contact with Golarion. They got familiarized with the area around the Stolen Lands during Kingmaker, but this AP is quite literally on the other side of the map and may as well be an entirely different world for as much of that knowledge carries over)
-Are there any characters early on I should be focusing on building up more than I might guess? I've read the first two parts, and seeing Foxglove take such a prominent role in Part 2 was kind of surprising given I more or less wrote him off in Part 1. Are there other characters like this I should be paying attention to and making sure the PCs interact with/develop some connection to?
-Are there any particularly fun/interesting supplemental materials out there for use either during the campaign, or as set-up to it? Like in Kingmaker one of the devs had released a bunch of extra mini games for the Rushlight tournament, is there something similar out there for the festival that you start out in for RoTR?
However recently I came across a Rise of the Runelords pack, that has all of the maps and statblocks from the adventure pre-loaded and ready to run, and for that kind of convenience I'm willing to pay. I've got the anniversary edition book and have been reading through it, as well as the roll20 pack. So for the most part I am ready to go.
However when looking around for advice about the adventure path, I find it hard to find any discussion surrounding it more recently than a decade old, which is a little weird for me coming off Kingmaker (which still has a pretty active community probably at least partially due to the video game renewing interest), so I figured I'd try asking here and see if anyone had run it and had any advice.
Major things I'm looking for in particular (though any general advice is also appreciated):
-What information should players have access to prior to starting the adventure? For example, I had no idea what a Runelord was until I went and did some Wiki diving. They get mentioned casually early on in Part 1 (there's a statue of one of the Runelords and a relatively easy knowledge check will identify/name drop him), does this mean the story of ancient Thassilion and the Runelords is something that the average person (or at least the average educated person) will likely know about? (Note: This is coming from the perspective of a group who has very little contact with Golarion. They got familiarized with the area around the Stolen Lands during Kingmaker, but this AP is quite literally on the other side of the map and may as well be an entirely different world for as much of that knowledge carries over)
-Are there any characters early on I should be focusing on building up more than I might guess? I've read the first two parts, and seeing Foxglove take such a prominent role in Part 2 was kind of surprising given I more or less wrote him off in Part 1. Are there other characters like this I should be paying attention to and making sure the PCs interact with/develop some connection to?
-Are there any particularly fun/interesting supplemental materials out there for use either during the campaign, or as set-up to it? Like in Kingmaker one of the devs had released a bunch of extra mini games for the Rushlight tournament, is there something similar out there for the festival that you start out in for RoTR?