I've realised that my idea is nigh combat free, which some groups may find boring, but I still want to avoid the pocket dimensions idea (not because it's a bad idea, far from it, it's because it's a great idea that I've overused with my current group, books that take you to a pocket dimension, paintings, statuettes etc and of course mirrors).thekristhomas wrote:One of the problems with the original adventure is it requires a confrontation with the DL in some form, as he is unwilling to allow the destruction of his harpsichord, and this provides an excellent solution.ScS of the Fraternity wrote:I always figured that the Baron's curse didn't allow for a proper exploration of a gothic background. I wondered if it would be better to use an idea like Silent Hill 4: The Room. The heroes would be trapped in the room and can make escapes, but only into pockets of time from the Baron's history. In this way, the heroes are more like classical gothic protagonists in that their role is to bring to light horrible, forgotten secrets.
Each of the time pockets contains a key or clue which is needed to open a later pocket, culminating in a final battle.
Maybe just to be cruel, the final battle may be impossible to win - but it does allow the heroes to open one final pocket which takes them to a time just before they got locked in the study. This leaves the baron trapped, alone, but with all of his hidden secrets revealed which forces him to re-live his awful past, alone, adinfinitum.
For myself, I would shy away from the pockets, as it reminds me of the structure from When Black Roses Bloom. But his story definitely needs to be revealed as the puzzles are solved. Might other rooms in the manor become open, leading closer to the exit? Or would that overly detract from the claustrophobia?
In BoCrypts it says that everything in the room, however disguised, is actually a representation of Lyron, his crimes or his victims. So it seems to me that all riddles, puzzles to be solved could be contained in the room somehow.
Destroying the harpsichord seems an inelegant solution, especially considering that a harpsichord has "keys" aplenty. It might be a bit "on the nose" for a specific tune or chord to be what frees the PCs but I would make it central to the process, with at least a few of the riddle/puzzle solutions to relate to the harpsichord. Ultimately I would probably lean towards the orrery or the clock as the time reset/freedom macguffin.
An idea for a puzzle in the room: There are statuettes of similar design scattered round the room, each depicting a victim of one of Lyron's killing sprees, they need to be arranged in the order they occurred for the musical notations etched into the podiums to be revealed. In turn the order can be inferred from the lyrics of Evensong's murder ballads, or some elegantly stitched poetry.
Having at least some of the riddles come in form of songs sung by the DL allows the DM some control over how quickly the PCs progress so is useful from a structural perspective, but might require a Riddler-esque compulsion to be worked into his curse
An idea that I had was kinda based on the "fighting men" dolls mentioned in another thread. Basically my idea was that at certain stages, or to obtain certain keys, the group must use a magical board game that is on the shelves, a large checkered table top with a set of lead miniatures and a velvet bag containing a set of bone polyhedral dice. To obtain the keys the PCs must select appropriate miniatures to represent them, paint them, and set up specific "battles" which they then play out, with the twist that dmg done to the miniatures is done to the PCs (not much of a twist, but there you go).
To further complicate matters the "opponent" pieces are scattered/hidden around the room, maybe with the most impossible to kill (like a dragon or something) being pretty obvious. This could make the puzzles between combat necessary for the combat to take place. The opponent pieces would contain the keys that operated the orrery, which would reset time to just before the PCs enter the room, thus allowing them to escape, but also keeping the DL unharmed and continuity flowing
