D&D: What Now?

[ralphmelton]

[This post is open to my players, so consider that in your responses.]

So, the events of the last session (that I described in my last entry) lead to an obvious question: what now?

Some general constraints I'm working within:
- I'm not going to hose the players whom I asked to go along with the vampire attack. (The characters might feel scared and miserable, but those players were helpful to me, and so I want to return the favor and keep them happy with the game.)
- I'm not totally opposed to the party remaining split for a while, but it's more convenient to have them together. (On the other hand, having Prolix absent makes it easier to do roleplay-heavy sessions.)
- I want Garrett to continue to be a scary badass.
- I want to be careful about PC death.

That's still a lot of latitude, though. And it gives me some opportunities to shape the campaign in ways to suit me. For example, I don't really like the 'make a pile of magic items for two weeks, then use them all in one battle' style of this fight; if I want to, I can declare that whenever they stay in one place long enough to let Melisande's scrying get a good sense of their location, they're inviting a vampire attack. But that might be so harsh as to make the game non-fun, so I want to take care.

Some possibilities:
- This campaign could turn from a game of beating up toughs into a game of cat-and-mouse with Garrett. (Especially since the healing ritual has done good things for other monster-spawning pools.)
- Or, perhaps, an Indiana-Jones-style race against the vampiric forces for various plot cookies. (Hmm... that gives me some ideas.)
- The free PCs might stage a daring rescue of their friends. This would probably require them finding some vulnerability or loophole that they could only exploit once, but which would let them make the rescue without engaging Garrett.

I must ponder and discuss this further. This event has got to change the campaign a bit; it's a golden opportunity, either to make things more exciting or to royally screw things up.

Comments

[harpwolf.livejournal.com]

I just saw LOTR: The Two Towers movie, and one thing that's obvious was that NONE of the characters were ever bored, even Merry & Pippin.

[cellio]

The make-magic-items-for-a-week-and-then-go approach has an inherent limitation: money. But I agree; I did not find that aspect of this to be satisfying either.

I want Garrett to continue to be a scary badass.

I don't think this will be a problem. :-)

As a player, I would enjoy seeing more of the world (some of the possibilities we've discussed before), so perhaps that fits in with a quest for plot cookies. Finding ways to rescue the two survivors from the last cataclysm (Elys' and Therion) would also provide strong goals (for most of us, at least). The flip side of that, though, is that you want to keep things focused on the PCs rather than the NPCs -- but there are two powerful NPCs who, in-character, we should be going after.

This event has got to change the campaign a bit;

Definitely.

Can a vampire scry through a mirror?

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind rescuing Elys and Therion to let them take on Garrett. Kyle would be perfectly willing to take out his freak minions while they dealt with the vampire. I guess I don't mind NPCs accomplishing something great as long as it's clear that they are supposed to be doing that and the PCs are supposed to be doing something else.

I generally don't like the super-buff munchkin approach but I'm a bit torn because just having a couple of those spells really makes Kyle effective.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

I've actually considered the question of vampiric scrying already. It's not completely trivial for a vampire who's repulsed by mirrors to use a mirror to scry, certainly.

What do you want to do to research the question? :-)

[cellio]

It was a player question, not a character question, asked to make sure the GM had considered the point. The methods available to the character to find out are dangerous, so no answer is currently required. :-)

[drakemonger.livejournal.com]

1. Garrett likes to kill.
2. Garrett has a particular fondness for killing certain things.
3. The PCs have his most valued possession.
4. The PCs are vulnerable.

The choices available to Garrett are almost entirely constrained by his character - unless you want him to go into a deep funk over having lost Weeping Wounds. Having Garrett react rather than act is no longer in character for him. The question is, what can you do that's in character for him that provides a (reasonable) chance of (most) of the PCs remaining alive?

That is indeed a tough one, since your PCs went in loaded for bear and came up a draw. Unless you want Garrett's enormous ego to trip him up (which is a cliche, but a fun one), I'd say your PCs are all dead. :)

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Garrett's not the type to go into a deep funk, no.

I would certainly prefer Garrett's ego tripping him up over having him kill all the PCs. I have generally been very open to the idea of stooping to cliche. :-)

Another idea: Garrett may even be too patient and too cautious. (After all, he's growing more powerful without much work on his part.) It would really be bad for him to mis-teleport into the sunlight, for example. That might be a rationalization to keep him from teleporting into the sanctuary...

[drakemonger.livejournal.com]

True. I say, send his minions who aren't allergic to daylight - well-coordinated this time, since *they* get to plan.

In fact, you could even get a few other people to play them, to counterbalance the hive mind effect.

[cellio]

I agree that you need to work out Garrett's motivations. Does he just want his dagger back? Does he want revenge on the specific person who took it? Does he want revenge on the entire party? Is he an instant-gratification kind of guy, or will he plot for months? (There was a 500-year lag last time; why?) And, most importantly, what's driving him -- why did he stab Agondre in the first place, and was it a willfull act or control by an outside force (like, say, the dagger)?

Obviously you aren't going to tell me the answers to most of these questions, but those answers will help guide his behavior.