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Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:41 am
by Starscream
Joël of the FoS wrote:Bleak House got bad reviews? Not sure! It got reviews for being very complicated to implement, AFAIK, but great reviews. It got 4,3 on 5 at the Kargatane web site. The middle part is weak but I did remove all the crappy parts for my game, as you now know.

Too bad it wasn't DMed as much as the other adventures because of that. It's great!
Sorry, it was my fault in my choice of words. I wanted to underline there were some faults in it, but I wrote like I disliked it.
Joël of the FoS wrote: The Doctors are new characters from Deepshadow's twisted mind ;) These are from a "soon to be published" Sea of Sorrows FoS report... :oops:

When I added these to my game, end of 2015 or early 2016, I thought the domain would get published in QtR before my journals came online, but that didn't happen that way.

That Dr Green is a Great Fihyr (MM2)
Oh! I didn't remember that monster but after a reading of his entry in my MM2 I can say it was a perfect fit. I think I will steal your "colour doctor" idea :D

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 8:44 pm
by DustBunny
Out of curiosity how 'old' do the servant ghosts see Van Richten and the PC's as? When Casmir mentioned the last time VR had friends over, the village went nuts searching for them, I wondered what they were seen as. Probably not kids, but definetly not adults.

Guessing at roughly mid-late teens, I am wondering how the 'adult' servants will react when these upstart teenagers start actively messing with the cycle of events.

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 8:59 pm
by Gonzoron of the FoS
DustBunny wrote:I am wondering how the 'adult' servants will react when these upstart teenagers start actively messing with the cycle of events.
Image

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 9:49 pm
by DustBunny
Jinkies! Now we just need the big reveal of Madame Radanavich running around in a bed sheet making 'Woooooo!' noises. :mrgreen:

But on the serious note - younger kids can get away with all sorts of social faux-pas (such as getting caught snooping on Josf's ledger) by doing the innocent wide eyed 'I'm sorry' excuse, but can also get brushed off with 'When you're older'.

Teenagers get away with some things with 'It's just a rebellious phase', but are more likely to be called out with major improprieties or simply get told to 'Go away'.

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:47 am
by Joël of the FoS
Starscream wrote: Sorry, it was my fault in my choice of words. I wanted to underline there were some faults in it, but I wrote like I disliked it.
No problem, wanted to clarify for the other readers: this adventure is great!
Oh! I didn't remember that monster but after a reading of his entry in my MM2 I can say it was a perfect fit. I think I will steal your "colour doctor" idea :D
You will have more info in the Dominia domain release, hopefully in next QtR!
DustBunny wrote:Out of curiosity how 'old' do the servant ghosts see Van Richten and the PC's as? When Casmir mentioned the last time VR had friends over, the village went nuts searching for them, I wondered what they were seen as. Probably not kids, but definetly not adults.
When they arrived the first day, everybody was looking at them as 12 years old. This had two metagaming purpose. 1) to suggest they are back in time (it worked), and 2) to make VR a little gaga the first day, unable to answer questions, so the players have to guess themselves what is going on (it worked, it is only later days that VR reveals a little by little, when he realize it himself).
Guessing at roughly mid-late teens, I am wondering how the 'adult' servants will react when these upstart teenagers start actively messing with the cycle of events.
I didn’t keep the “address them as youngster” the next day (when the daily “schedule” started), and the days after. At first, as an added strangeness of the house, I wanted to make their “age” change everyday – one day they would be youngsters to the day ghosts, the next as adults, etc.

But I dropped this part and made them “normal age” the day after. It made their interactions with the day ghost more realistic, as you suggested. I didn’t want the day ghost pushing them around or telling them to “go play elsewhere”, as hot-tempered NPCs (Josef, Karl) could do with teenagers. I’m not sure my players would have liked it.
DustBunny wrote:Jinkies! Now we just need the big reveal of Madame Radanavich running around in a bed sheet making 'Woooooo!' noises. :mrgreen:
:lol: at this and Ron's image
But on the serious note - younger kids can get away with all sorts of social faux-pas (such as getting caught snooping on Josf's ledger) by doing the innocent wide eyed 'I'm sorry' excuse, but can also get brushed off with 'When you're older'.

Teenagers get away with some things with 'It's just a rebellious phase', but are more likely to be called out with major improprieties or simply get told to 'Go away'.

But I’m thinking, for those planning to DM this game, keeping them as teenagers in the eyes of NPCs for all the adventure could indeed be an option, if the DM make sure it isn’t only frustrating.

It can make the part where the PCs have to convince the day NPCs they are ghost more difficult.

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Fri Jun 15, 2018 6:32 am
by Starscream
Joël of the FoS wrote:
Starscream wrote: Oh! I didn't remember that monster but after a reading of his entry in my MM2 I can say it was a perfect fit. I think I will steal your "colour doctor" idea :D
You will have more info in the Dominia domain release, hopefully in next QtR!
Oh! Gooood news! Since I have no plans at the moment for Bleak House, I will happily wait the next QtR!

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:10 am
by Zilfer
Was rereading some of your campaign journals, and was wondering if it was ever covered whether Godefroy is gone for good? :D I forgot about the whole ring to bring back to the dead. It was fairly clever way for Godefroy to attempt to bypass his curse. (Sorry very old session comment here xD) I was looking for the newest entry when I stumbled upon that flash back portion to the events near session 30. :D

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 11:14 am
by Joël of the FoS
Zilfer wrote:Was rereading some of your campaign journals, and was wondering if it was ever covered whether Godefroy is gone for good? :D I forgot about the whole ring to bring back to the dead. It was fairly clever way for Godefroy to attempt to bypass his curse. (Sorry very old session comment here xD) I was looking for the newest entry when I stumbled upon that flash back portion to the events near session 30. :D
Credit : this ring idea was developped by Deepshadow, and it worked quite well.

No, not at all, I do not think he was destroyed. His stress level over his curse just increased :)

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 12:13 pm
by Zilfer
haha, nice. ;) sounds like Deepshadow is a genius then. :D I definitely want to use this eventually in a campaign though I've none going on in Mordentshire ATM. The person's campaign that was there is currently in a far off land finding his family's old home, but he'll return eventually and maybe I can make this the basis of some of the plot. :D

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 2:56 pm
by Gonzoron of the FoS
Zilfer wrote:haha, nice. ;) sounds like Deepshadow is a genius then.
I've been saying it for years.... ;) Mad genius, the best kind. :)

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 3:06 pm
by Zilfer
Speaking of Campaigns, how is the Twilight Children going? hmmm?

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 4:07 pm
by Gonzoron of the FoS
Zilfer wrote:Speaking of Campaigns, how is the Twilight Children going? hmmm?
Funny you should mention that.... session 28 has been played and the journal is in progress... expect it soon. :twisted: (but don't get too excited, it was a shorter than usual session)

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2018 5:27 pm
by Zilfer
I probably need to restart reading BOTH your guys campaign journals to hunt for ideas/entertainment since it's been a long while.

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 5:37 pm
by Zilfer
Random Follow up question since I am searching out stuff for potentially using the Midnight Slasher in my game these next few weeks of halloween. Did you ever decide if the Falkovnian's caught the Midnight Slasher? (Is looking for any poems that people have made up for her killings as well) That's Joel!

Re: Joël's campaign (now: end part of Bleak House!)

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 7:39 pm
by Joël of the FoS
Zilfer wrote:Random Follow up question since I am searching out stuff for potentially using the Midnight Slasher in my game these next few weeks of halloween. Did you ever decide if the Falkovnian's caught the Midnight Slasher? (Is looking for any poems that people have made up for her killings as well) That's Joel!
I added one poem to the canons proposed in 2e. It was taken from an Alice and chains song. I liked the sound of it and it sounded cryptic like other MS messages.

Toll due
Bad dreams come true
Some say w’ere born into the grave



For the second question, it was a side quest where I hopped the PCs would try to contact the MS to warn her. They
were watched by spies (their old friend Keith Delalune, trading info to the Falkovnians) hopping to find the MS identity by following the PCs. Didn’t work this time as they didn’t move an inch to warn her, even if they didn’t want her to get caught. I had planned an attack of the MS by Falkovnians as the PCs were talking to her. Next time in Karina perhaps :)