Scales of War

[dither]

I'm getting ready to run the first adventure in the Scales of War adventure path for 4e. Has anyone run or played in the Scales of War campaign and/or have any advice? I've been playing 4e for about 2 months with another group, after stalking it from the shadows during its announcement and flipping through the occasional book since its release.

All the players I have will be totally new to 4e, and it's been a year since they played in the 3.5 campaign I ran before, so I'm more or less prepared for these guys to totally wet behind the ears. I'm compiling a play list of music from Guild Wars and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion soundtracks to help put them in the mood.

If anyone's interested, I can try to keep up with summaries/observations of gameplay here. Other than that, just looking for basic 4e DM advice. I've made steps in the past to incorporate Skill Challenges into my 3.5 games, so I don't really see those causing a problem.

Rescue at Rivenroar APL 1
Adventure Progress:
X - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O - O

Characters:
Deva blaster wizard (controller)
Dragonborn bravura warlord (leader)
Elf dual-wield ranger (striker)
Kobold guardian fighter (defender)
Razorclaw shifter assassin (striker)

Rescue at Rivenroar: Encounter 1 "Goblin Terror Tactics, Part A"
Tuesday, April 14th, 2010

[spoiler]So last night we began the first adventure in the Scales of War adventure path for Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Our party currently consists of an elf dual-wield ranger, a dragonborn bravura warlord, a kobold guardian fighter, a deva blaster wizard, and a razorclaw shifter assassin. (For those of you keeping score at home, that's a leader, a defender, two strikers, and a controller.)

We played from sometime after seven in the evening until about nine and managed to get through the first encounter. I didn't know how far we'd get or how quickly we'd get into things, so I prepared more encounters than I thought I needed. I was still surprised by how much more I had than I needed, but I'm not going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth, after all, I was prepared to run the entire module in one night, if need be. :smirks:

I had spent a good deal of the afternoon leading up to the game trying to figure out how to begin the game. I took a good deal of notes on the nature of roleplaying and prepared what amounted to a lecture that I could deliver to the players when we started. And when time came to start, I sat there dumbfounded because I realized that the speech I prepared would mean nothing to the group I was going to deliver it to, I was writing to the wrong audience. :shakes head: It took me several minutes to get started up and still I had little to offer and couldn't shake the feeling that I brought the wrong tools to the table.

I have a lot of experience in the DM's role, but I think I've gotten used to the idea that I'm not only there to facilitate the player's actions; my only recourse in this case was to try to take charge and lead the players into the encounter that began the adventure. I don't think that I've necessarily forgotten how to tell a story, except maybe I've forgotten how to tell a story with a group of people. I believe I run an excellent solo game, in fact, I think that's where I shine; I can't make the group do anything, and there aren't any players in the group with strong enough motivation to carry them.

I think what I'm going to do in this case, until I can figure out what exactly to do, is simply run them through encounters and let them explain how they got there until they find something worth pushing for. I'll let them know this, too: that I have a series of prefabricated encounters and that until someone takes charge, I'm just going to move from point A to B to C. I set the stage and let them act; they need to come up with their own motivation, while I provide the sets, the supporting cast, and the special effects.

There are some pretty lofty goals in Dungeons & Dragons: epic storytelling, character development, et cetera, et cetera, but these things come along after the game has been under way for a while. You have to be able to enjoy the game, first, you have to play the game and roll the dice and all that before you can get to the juicy stuff; it comes from working towards it. Some games play out in your favor, and sometimes it takes a long, long time between games for you to get your chance to shine and really enjoy yourself.[/spoiler]

[Littha]

As far as the soundtrack goes you have to add the Ronfaure music from FFXI... and the Sanctuary of Zi'tah.... hell just get the whole FFXI soundtrack.

Though I'm useless for 4e DMing advice so I can't help so much there.

[dither]

Not a bad idea, I remember enjoying the FFXI music in general. I'll add it to the list.

I've noticed thus far that the first dungeon is poorly lit and few, if any, of the monsters can see in the dark.
This doesn't seem to be mentioned as a "key" dungeon feature and looks to be an oversight on the part of the writer.

...A really *retarded* oversight, given how vision and illumination rules were *already* simplified for 4e. 

[dither]

Okay, I've got characters for all the players now, so I've gone and picked out the treasure parcels for the adventure.

I'll add the party make-up to the first post at some point later.
Deva wizard
Dragonborn (fire) warlord (bravura)
Elf ranger (two-weapon)
Kobold fighter
Razorclaw shifter assassin (night stalker)

The players behind the ranger, warlord, and wizard have the most roleplaying experience, though none of them have experience with Fourth Edition. I subtly maneuvered some of the players into their roles, particularly the dragonborn; somewhat disappointed that there was already a wizard, I made the dragonborn/warlord suggestion which he thought sounded really cool. I think the breath weapon was the selling point?

Defender, controller, leader, and two strikers. I think that's supposed to be the "ideal" group, but it'll really depend on how well the players enjoy/play those "roles," and that said, I don't have too much faith in the roles to begin with, so I'm left wondering exactly to expect.

[dither]

Rescue at Rivenroar: Encounter 1 "Goblin Terror Tactics, Part A"

So last night we began the first adventure in the Scales of War adventure path for Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Our party currently consists of an elf dual-wield ranger, a dragonborn bravura warlord, a kobold guardian fighter, a deva blaster wizard, and a razorclaw shifter assassin. (For those of you keeping score at home, that's a leader, a defender, two strikers, and a controller.)

We played from sometime after seven in the evening until about nine and managed to get through the first encounter. I didn't know how far we'd get or how quickly we'd get into things, so I prepared more encounters than I thought I needed. I was still surprised by how much more I had than I needed, but I'm not going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth, after all, I was prepared to run the entire module in one night, if need be. :smirks:

I had spent a good deal of the afternoon leading up to the game trying to figure out how to begin the game. I took a good deal of notes on the nature of roleplaying and prepared what amounted to a lecture that I could deliver to the players when we started. And when time came to start, I sat there dumbfounded because I realized that the speech I prepared would mean nothing to the group I was going to deliver it to, I was writing to the wrong audience. :shakes head: It took me several minutes to get started up and still I had little to offer and couldn't shake the feeling that I brought the wrong tools to the table.

I have a lot of experience in the DM's role, but I think I've gotten used to the idea that I'm not only there to facilitate the player's actions; my only recourse in this case was to try to take charge and lead the players into the encounter that began the adventure. I don't think that I've necessarily forgotten how to tell a story, except maybe I've forgotten how to tell a story with a group of people. I believe I run an excellent solo game, in fact, I think that's where I shine; I can't make the group do anything, and there aren't any players in the group with strong enough motivation to carry them.

I think what I'm going to do in this case, until I can figure out what exactly to do, is simply run them through encounters and let them explain how they got there until they find something worth pushing for. I'll let them know this, too: that I have a series of prefabricated encounters and that until someone takes charge, I'm just going to move from point A to B to C. I set the stage and let them act; they need to come up with their own motivation, while I provide the sets, the supporting cast, and the special effects.

There are some pretty lofty goals in Dungeons & Dragons: epic storytelling, character development, et cetera, et cetera, but these things come along after the game has been under way for a while. You have to be able to enjoy the game, first, you have to play the game and roll the dice and all that before you can get to the juicy stuff; it comes from working towards it. Some games play out in your favor, and sometimes it takes a long, long time between games for you to get your chance to shine and really enjoy yourself.

[dither]

I should note that we played through 3 more encounters on our second meeting:
* Ogre + wagon full of explosive roofing tar
* Interrogate hobgoblin & find out about missing people
* Travel through woods to track down hobgoblins

We'd just gotten started on an encounter with a cave bear (optional) when one of our players had to leave. We wrapped things up there and haven't gotten back to the game since then. Presumably, the characters are still poised, mid-battle, in an epic struggle with this bear.