I run D&D Encounters at two FLGS in my area. The game played on Wednesday night is the one I usually write about. However, when I can’t make the Wednesday night game I recount the session I played on Monday night with my other group. This week’s field report will follow the Monday night crew. For anyone following this season’s podcasts, don’t worry we still recorded the adventure. However, you won’t recognize any of the voices but mine.
On Monday night we usually have enough people to run two tables; however our second DM was unable to play this week which meant I ended up running one massive table. We started with seven players. Not great but definitely manageable. Within 10 minutes two more players showed up so we ended up running a table of nine. But believe it or not the overflowing game table had nothing to do with the overall problems we faced this week.
The party consisted of a Goliath Fighter (Battlerager), Kalashtar Paladin, Gnome Bladesinger, Warforged Druid (PHB2 build), Tiefling Battlemind, Tiefling Warlock, Human Bard, Eladrin Cleric (Valenae per-gen), Human Wizard (enchanter).
Throughout this article there’s a really good chance I’m going to come across as really negative. My intent is not to turn this into a rant (although I suspect it will become one). After all I’m a huge supporter of D&D Encounters program. I write an article about D&D Encounters every week and I play the adventure twice a week. Although I may have some incidental criticisms once in a while, my overall feeling is that it’s an excellent program. That being said, I felt that this week’s encounter was one of the worst ever in six seasons of D&D Encounters. I realize they can’t all be gems, but this one was riddled with problems.
The problem that really came to a head this week was the blatant railroading that is happening in this adventure. The PCs are in the middle of a political power struggle and are forced to take sides. They’re given the illusion of choice but in the end they have to choose Lord Neverember’s side. Since most of the PCs just arrived in Neverwinter they have no history, personal politics or allegiances. There’s no good reason to force them to be on one side or the other. The adventure even gives them badges from both sides and depending on which one they wear some skill checks are helped or hindered. But in the case of this week’s encounter it didn’t matter. Even if they PC wore the Lost Heir’s badge they still ended up in a fight because they were seen as Lord Neverember’s stooges.
The other huge problem with this week’s encounter was the requirement that the PCs had to go to the House of a Thousand Faces. The mission the heroes accepted from Lord Neverember was to find the Lost Heir or find solid, reliable information to support or discredit his claim on Neverwinter’s throne. Yet during week 4’s encounter they were sidetracked.
If you recall when the PCs arrived at the Wall a group of Bandits had killed the guards and were trying to open the gates. Obviously the PCs stepped in and stopped the Bandits, but this was not really part of their mission. It was a distraction at best. After the combat Seldra the Half-elf explained that these bandits were working for the Dead Rats. Again, this is nice information to have, but not relevant unless the Lost Heir is also a Dead Rat. Unfortunately the adventure railroads the PCs into following-up on this lead even though they have no real motivation to see it through (other than to just do the right thing).
This week’s encounter began when the heroes arrived at the House of a Thousand Faces. The Eladrin and Half-elf running the inn and tavern are kind and welcoming. They’re willing to talk but don’t seem to have any relevant information about the Lost Heir’s or the Dead Rats. They suggest talking to Charl to learn more. Charl is happy to talk about the Lost Heir but clearly knows nothing useful. He has information about the Dead Rats but the adventure says he won’t reveal it unless he’s begging for his life (which at this point isn’t relevant).
In order for the combat part of the encounter to begin Charl has to accuse the heroes of being Lord Neverember supports (which he has no proof of at this point). The heroes are in turn supposed to be offended by the taunting to the point where they’ll want to fight Charl. When this happens Charl and his men attack the party.
This group of heroes has taken special care not to wear the badges they received from the Lost Heir or Lord Neverember. They have done everything they can to remain neutral. Neither Charl nor any other observer has any reason to believe that these heroes are working for Lord Neverember. If anything they might even think the PCs will support the Lost Heir since they did fight by his side against the white dragon. The adventure even gives PCs a substantial bonus to their skills when interacting with Charl if they present the Lost Heir’s badge. There is no reason for this fight to happen. Yet it inevitably does, because what’s a week of D&D Encounters without combat?
My final beef with this week’s encounter is all the information provided to the DM that none of the players ever know about. It turns out that The House of a Thousand Faces is a Harper hideout and that the Eladrin and Half-elf are themselves Harper agents. Fortunately I had PCs at the table with the Harper theme. However, as the Harpers are a secretive organization those PCs did not think it appropriate to reveal these facts to the non-Harper party members. Likewise the Eladrin and Half-elf wouldn’t reveal themselves as Harpers to those not already in the know. So a whole page of the adventure was merely good reading for the DM, but not something that would ever likely come out in the game.
Now that I’ve ranted (damn, I really didn’t want this to become a rant) let me give you some of the details on what happened at the table. The party arrived at The House of a Thousand faces where they interacted with Toram, the Half-elf that, along with his Eladrin sister, run the place. He was cordial but had nothing useful to share when asked about the Lost Heir. The party eventually asked about the Dead Rats and Toram suggested they speak with Charl the Halfling. A few of the nine heroes decided to go over to Charl’s table. Realizing that this could exclude the majority of the players from a social interaction I instead had Toram wave Charl over to the PCs’ table.
Charl also had little to reveal about the Lost Heir. This frustrated the party to no end. Why would they be forced to come here if they couldn’t get the information that the adventure required of them. They asked about the Dead Rats and Charl basically said he works for them on occasion but isn’t a member. By now I was really starting to lose the players. They basically said they were going to kill the Halfling out of frustration. Now I had to improvise.
I had a group of Charl’s associated enter the bar and come over to the PCs’ table to say hi to Charl. While doing this, one of the men successfully pick pocketed a Lord Neverember badge from one of the PCs. The Bandit tried to secretly show it to Charl from across the room but two of the PCs noticed this. As soon as Charl realized that the PCs were working for Lord Neverember he initiated the fight. I didn’t like taking this route, but it was the best I could come up with at a moment’s notice. Charl dropped a smoke pellet and combat began.
I must credit the players because it only took mild prompting for them to realize that these were regular people and that so far no one had been attacked. This was just posturing. The heroes delayed attacking until the Bandits engaged them. After that it was on.
The combat part of the encounter was actually very interesting. I added more Bandits and more manikins. With the confusion already created from the smoke pellet and the six mirrors, it was a very crowded tap-room where the PCs were unsure of which minis were manikins and which were actual opponents.
I deliberately had some of the Bandits remain motionless for a round or two, ignoring the opportunity attacks they’d normally be allowed in order for the PCs not to notice them as threatening. I explained what I was doing to the players and told them that if they used a minor action to make a Perception check they could notice the difference for nearby minis. If a PC ended his turn next to a manikin or Bandit they automatically knew the difference.
As expected the combat with nine PC, eight Bandits and one sneaking Halfling took a long time. The entire session took about 2 hours 15 minutes, most of that being the combat. Charl eventually surrendered when he ran out of smoke pellets and most of his men were unconscious. When the fighting was over the heroes questioned Charl and he told them what he knew of the Dead Rats. Many of the players didn’t care at all. They wanted to know more about the Lost Heir. No one understood why these PC would continue following-up on the Dead Rats. I couldn’t provide them with a good explanation.
I realize I didn’t actually go into the specifics of the combat as I usually do. I felt that taking about the problems was more important. Am I the only one who’s feeling this way? Did I just miss something earlier in the adventurer that would give the heroes the motivation they seemed to be lacking? How are other DMs handing players who want a reason to do this but don’t have one?
I’m worried that frustrated players may give up and stop coming out D&D Encounters or that they’ll instead opt to take on Lair Assault until this season of D&D Encounters is finished. I thought the first few weeks of this adventure were really well done which makes this recent problem encounter so disappointing. What are your thoughts on my situation?
As an added bonus this season we’re recording our D&D Encounters experiences and making them available to you as downloadable podcasts. Listen to the Week 6 Encounter. Bear in mind that these recordings are made in a loud, crowded game store so at time it may be difficult to hear everyone.
Visit the Dungeon’s Master D&D Encounters Archive for all of our ongoing weekly coverage as well as other great D&D Encounters articles and resources.
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1 2 3 Next »I am running this tonight. I am willing to let my very neutral players RP it out and avoid the combat entirely. If they go this route, I will try to provide reasons to keep looking deeper into the Dead Rat connection without explicit railroading. Last week, my players tried to discreetly show Neverember's badge to the bridge guards, and due to a bad streewise roll, the guard ruined the discretion. I stole the scene from that Paul Hogan movie where he thinks he is an Angel, and the guard let the snipers up in their nests know these guys were OK.
So Charl has intel that they are on the fence. There is evidence of them working for both Neverember and the Lost Heir. I think I have enough material here to steer them toward Chapter 3, without explicit railroading. Railroading is annoying, but it is a necessary evil for public play to some degree. I am looking forward to a week without fighting, if I can pull it off. I may be running 2 tables tonight, and if the players can share the spotlight, a RP encounter with some skill checks (not an explicit challege, unless the player nidge things that way) could very easily make tonight bearable with my second DM out for the week.
I agree with you 149%. And share you annoyances. Hoping to find a creative way out of this week's annoyances.
I Find your rants very constructive, so they really aren't rants in the classic sense. More like spirited discussions of a passionate topic.
It was boring. In our table, Charl said the Lost Heir was a member of the Dead Rats, so we wanted him to prove it, and then he wouldn't. We were instantly bored, because we had no reason to believe he knew the guy we were seeking. Then a half-orc intimidated him and combat started.
But I had no interest in the Dead Rat Gang or anyone in this Thousand Faces area... if the Lost Heir wants help retaking his birthright, why would he deny meeting supporters who wear the proper badge and want to meet him to help? Best to kill your supporters... truly a great political-military strategy.
...and we killed Charl and have no leads except the one spoon-fed to us by the encounter.
Games like this encourage the players to just sit back and wait to roll, destroying the entire role play and creativity that made D&D a game in the first place.
This is Nintendo!
I get where you're coming from.
My solution to the problem was to lie and re-write the adventure somewhat.
My Charl 'Halfling member of the Dead Rats' was like Tom Wilkinson as Carmine Falcone in Batman Begins.
The Harpers Agent Eladrin let slip that the place was a Harper's hideout after enough heroes flashed their amethyst badges (Her protesting that the place was a family friendly TGI Friday's-like inn didn't stick).
After he was beaten, surrendered, Charl spilled his guts to the party, telling them everything, even volunteering to show them the Dead Rats hideout personally.
We had the same problem with this side trek.
It was compounded by the fact that none of the players had the Harper theme (so all that info was completely lost on us) and that the DM (usually a very good one) wasnt on its best during those two encounters, which meant that things were even more confusing (the manikins didnt even factor into the combat, which is a shame since from your description it looks like a cool setup).
The combat was interesting only because our resources had been really depleted during those other encounters, which made for an intense encounter, but on the other end our sincere attempts to avoid combat were for nothing, due to no meaningful reason (other than the obligatory combat encounter), and the attack came out of the blue (we thought the halfling was either crazy or controlled, which could make sense, but even that failed by the wayside).
To make matters worse, this is the end of the chapter, so the players went on a railroaded wild goose chase.
I, too, was frustrated with the interaction with Charl. I had no desire to hurt him, but it seemed impossible to get any information out of him otherwise. We tried to befriend him, buy him drinks, bribe him with gold, or just read his body language, and none of that produced any results that moved the narrative forward at all. Eventually my Dwarven slayer decided his patience had worn thin and decided to start talking with his greataxe, which started the brawl. Once Charl was bloodied and near death, the Cleric of Oghma brokered a deal. Tell us all you know, and I'll heal your wounds. Charl consented, and his lips seemed to flap endlessly about everything money and ale could not buy earlier. No one in the party was openly wearing a badge because we wanted to be cautious in the Blacklake district of who we claimed homage to.
I also agree about the plethora of back ground information that really doesn't get to be used. It's just flavor, and it highlights many of the cool things about this campaign setting, but doesn't affect much about this specific encounter or season. I feel that way about a lot of the theme tie in stuff for this season. It's very neat, but not used to it's full effect within the parameters of the module.
Here's my understanding of what the player motivations might be for this encounter, and the lead up to it. I think the motivation is there, but it's loosely connected, and you have to make some basic assumptions.
Lord Neverember is paying the characters to find out who the Lost Heir is, if he's legitimate, and if possible, bring the Lost Heir to see Lord Neverember. He tells them to start at the wall (to get an idea of what he's up against in rebuilding Neverwinter, and why he needs to know if the Lost Heir is a hindrance or a help to those efforts), and then he suggests they go to the Blacklake district to investigate further about the Lost Heir. Presumably because that's where they'll find the supporters of the Heir (such as the Sons of Alagondar, which I believe is commonly known to support the heir.)
After the encounter at the wall, the players meet Seldra (some for a second time), and she is loyal to the heir yet an agent of Neverember, a contradiction she does not deny, and that Neverember is also aware of, calling her his (Lord NEs) spy. She tells the players that the bandits were hired by the Dead Rat's gang, and that the gang is in league with the Sons of Alagondar. So one can make the connection that the supporters of the heir had something to do with attempting to open the gate. If the goal is to find out about the Lost heir, finding his supporters is a good step. Whether that's to infiltrate or to confront is up to the players.
So now the players have their lead. To follow up on it, they need to find someone that can lead them to either the dead rat's gang, or the sons of Alagondar, and the best bet they have right now is through the dead rat's gang. And the link they have to that is the House of a Thousand Faces. Why? Because Seldra said so.
So the whole thing is based on what two people say. Lord Neverember (who specifically said to check out the Blacklake district) and Seldra who says the bandits are working for the Dead Rat's gang who is in league with the Sons of Alagondar, and who you will be able to get information about at the House of a Thousand faces in the Blacklake district. If your players are suspicious of Seldra (and with the short interaction they had, they probably are) then acting on her word doesn't seem the best course of action. Still, it's all we're given.
I still like this season of encounters a lot. I think it's a good story. I do recognize that it's a bit more rail roadish than some of the previous seasons. More than anything, it makes me want to run a home campaign where some of the greater political intrigues and alliances can be fleshed out.
I ran into similar troubles. My group has been drifting towards the side of the lost heir and when they got the House of a Thousand faces they were being openly friendly with Charl. With nothing in the printed adventure that allowed for that possibility I improvised.
While the group was drinking with and chating up with Charl I had a second group of adventures enter the place who were loyal to Neverember. The NPC adventures then started the brawl and in the confusion there was some friendly fire.
I have pretty much decided that I'll let the group continue to support the Lost Heir if they want to and modify the adventure as need be to accommodate the altered path.
I had a big table, as well, with 7 players. One of the Tieflings went right up to the halfling and started talking to him but started to intimidate when Charl (which I said was short for Charles -- the night was rife with short jokes) had little information to offer. Since we had only just started and I wanted to give the others a chance to roleplay, I asked if anyone wanted to try to diffuse the situation.
Their rolls were terrible, although one PC did catch on that Charl had buddies in the bar. And so combat ensued. Yes, a crowded room full of mirrors and mannequins made for very interesting combat.
I do think the PCs were disappointed not to know more about the Lost Heir. All Charl would tell them was that he was the Heir's "biggest" supporter.
As for the Harper PC, she decided to turn Charl over to the innkeepers, rather than to Lord Neverember. I'm trying to decide how that will affect things for next time, since the player knew it meant she could be seen as a suspect in the Harper Commander's murder.
I think the idea is that this is supposed to feel like a big reveal and the information should propel the players and their PCs to align against the Lost Heir. I can see how a writer can be thinking this will be compelling (after all, they know the story so well inside their heads).
Don't worry about the rant. Your column is awesome and your support for Encounters isn't hurt by this. It may actually be strengthened, because you call it as you see it.
One thing that shocked me to learn while reading this was that you took on 9 players at once. Why on earth would you run a game with 9 players? That seemed crazy to me. But that's besides the main point. I will ask, why didn't you break it down to 2 games of 4 players? Did nobody else want to DM?!
Any case, back to the issue at hand, the Encounter. Yikes! I know some DM's have been playing up the whole "Pick a side. Evermember? Lost Heir?! Is there really a bad guy in all this!" aspect of the adventure but to learn of this encounter means to me that the module did not only an awful job of presenting this, it contradicts itself! That's really bad writing.
Good read today, we don't always need a blow by blow description of what happens. I like these review of the various weeks encounters themselves and a general idea of how well or poorly the players did. Keep up the great work.
One I read about this side-trek I tried to set it up more by playing up the civil strife in Neverwinter. The players really get that the city is tearing itself apart and when Seldra approached them I had her basically spell out "you find the heir, we can broker a meet with Neverember and all will be save". The oartybhad no problem continuing on the sidetrack, though more than one asked the next session, on the way down to the Wyvern bridge "Why are we going here?"
I was more bothered by the fact that the Wyvern Bridge encounter had no opportunities for roleplaying or non-murdering built into the encounter except for the bridge guards. I spent some extra time describing how the city changed as they approached the outer reaches of the Enclave and how the Mintaran mercenaries were bad dudes, but the thread of the story got a little lost.
Next week (we're a week behind still) I'll try to make the conflict a little more inevitable between the dead rats and the party, so the railroad tracks aren't so clear.