Go to Part 1

SPOILER WARNING!

The following thoughts contain minor spoilers for Keep on the Shadowfell. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read it. And if you’re in my gaming group then you definitely shouldn’t be reading it.

REVELATION 4: CULT OF ORCUS

Once the PCs become aware of the cult’s potential involvement in the area (either through identifying a holy symbol; an Orcus idol; or learning of the keep’s true history), they may want to find out more about Orcus and his cult.

CLUE 1: ARCANA/RELIGION CHECK. See the Monster Manual, pg. 206, for Orcus Lore.

CLUE 2: STREETWISE CHECK/VALTHRUN. See “On the Streets of Winterhaven”.

CLUE 3: DOUVEN STAHL. Douven Stahl can tell them everything on pgs. 206 and 210 of the Monster Manual regarding Orcus and his cults. See, also, “Dragon Burial Site”.

REVELATION 5: KALAREL’S RITUAL

The PCs don’t need to know about Kalarel’s ritual before stumbling into area 19 of the keep, but they’re likely to be interested in learning what the cult is planning.

CLUE 1: KALAREL’S RITUAL LETTER. The note Kalarel writes to Ninaran can be recovered after the “Dead Walk” interlude. It mentions the keep (see below).

CLUE 2: DOUVEN STAHL. Douven Stahl can make several informed guesses regarding the ritual (see “Dragon Burial Site”).

CLUE 3: SIR KEEGAN. Sir Keegan, in area 8 of the keep, can tell them of the Fane of Orcus which lay beneath the keep (see “Kalarel’s Ritual”). He knows that the cultists have gathered there.

KALAREL’S RITUAL LETTER

I received your report on the runebearers. Next time you see them, but an end to their meddling. Mix the blood of ten people with the elixir my messenger brings. Then trace the following pattern on the ground of the graveyard and pour the liquid into the lines:

With the thinning of the veil here at the keep, this circle will create a sympathetic connection to the Shadowfell.

My work here is very near completion. It will not be long now. If you come to the keep, the pass phrase for the second level is “from the ground, some magic was found”.

Kalarel

USING THE REVELATION LIST

Basically, there are three steps to my use of the revelation list for an adventure:

First, I determine the chokepoints of the adventure and list the necessary revelations.

Second, for each revelation I make a list of at least three clues and then incorporate these clues into the design of the adventure.

Third, while actually running the adventure, I keep the revelation-and-clue list handy as a quick-reference tool. I treat it as a literal checklist: If the PCs find a clue, I check it off. If the PCs have missed a clue (by failing to search a room, for example), I’ll circle it. If the PCs have definitely reached a particular conclusion (not just considered it as a possibility, but definitively concluded that “this is what’s happening”), I’ll cross the entire revelation off my list.

Using this approach allows me to spot potential trouble spots as they’re developing: If, for example, the PCs have discovered all the clues I’ve designed for a particular revelation but, for whatever reason, still haven’t draw the proper conclusion then I know I need to introduce new clues. Similarly, if they’ve been missing a lot of clues for a particular revelation, I can start anticipating the need for new clues.

My original Three Clue Rule essay had a lengthier discussion of how to deal with these types of issues as they emerge, but here’s an example: If the PCs have missed or ignored all of the clues suggesting that they should really check out the Keep of the Shadowfell and see what’s going on there, I might decide to trigger Ninaran’s assault on Lord Padraig’s manor house with the intention that either Ninaran or one of the other cultists will willingly surrender when the encounter turns against them and spill their guts regarding Kalarel’s plans.

Similarly, if the PCs haven’t found the kobold lair yet, I might trigger one of the kobold encounters — either the “Slyblade Hunter” or “Farmer’s Jeopardy” encounters can be used without the PCs taking any action themselves — and use it as a way of introducing a new clue. (Or, if nothing else, give the players something to do while I try to figure out another way of getting them back on track.)

The good news is that, when you use the Three Clue Rule, you generally won’t run into these problems in the first place, so you’ll be able to spend more time playing the game and less time trying to fix the game.

Go to Part 1

SPOILER WARNING!

The following thoughts contain minor spoilers for Keep on the Shadowfell. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read it. And if you’re in my gaming group then you definitely shouldn’t be reading it.

REVELATION 1: THE KOBOLD LAIR

Keep on the Shadowfell begins with a kobold ambush. The entire village of Winterhaven is suffering under the effects of the kobold attacks. And Lord Padraig is offering bounties on both dead kobolds and the location of the kobold lair. So how will the PCs actually find the kobold lair?

CLUE 1: TRACKING. The PCs can track the kobolds back to their lair, starting at the location of any of their attacks or the barricades on the road between Winterhaven and the Keep of the Shadowfell.

Following the trail is a 6/3 skill challenge. The PCs must first succeed at a Perception check (DC 15) to locate the tracks (this counts as a success on the skill challenge), and can then use Nature and Perception checks as primary skills to complete the skill challenge.

CLUE 2: NINARAN. A successful Streetwise check in Winterhaven will put them in touch with Ninaran (see “On the Streets of Winterhaven” and “Winterhaven NPCs”).

CLUE 3: INTERROGATION. Any captured kobold can be forced to reveal the location of the kobold lair with an Intimidate check vs. Will defense. The kobold receives a +10 bonus because it’s hostile and a +2 bonus because giving up the location of the lair is essentially a betrayal of the entire clan.

Other PCs can use the Aid Another action with either Interrogation or Diplomacy (good cop/bad cop).

REVELATION 2: DRAGON BURIAL SITE

The PCs need to become aware of the dragon burial site and motivated to check it out.

CLUE 1: DRUIDIC SPIRIT. The druidic spirit in area 6 of the kobold lair is aware of the dragon burial site and of its importance to Kalarel’s ritual (see “Kobold Lair”).

CLUE 2: VALTHRUN. If asked about the Cult of Orcus, Valthrun will have some information but will also refer the PCs to Douven Stahl — “the true expert on the cult”. Valthrun knows that Stahl was researching the burial site and can tell the PCs where it is. (See “On the Streets of Winterhaven” and “Winterhaven NPCs”.)

CLUE 3: KALAREL’S LETTER TO BALGRON. We’ll put a letter in area 4 of the keep, written by Kalarel with instructions for Balgron.

Balgron—

One of the villagers has stumbled onto the dig site south of the village. I’ve ordered Datok and his men to reinforce Agrid. You should send some of your goblins to the surface and keep an eye on the ruins. It is important that our work not be disturbed.

Kalarel

REVELATION 3: THE KEEP

Pretty much anyone in Winterhaven can tell the PCs where the Keep is, and many people can give them even more information about it (see the relevant Streetwise check in “On the Streets of Winterhaven”). However, the following clues will make the players aware of its importance:

CLUE 1: DOUVEN STAHL. When the PCs speak with Douven Stahl at the dragon burial site, he’ll be able to tell them about the Keep. (See “Dragon Burial Site”.)

CLUE 2: KALAREL’S RITUAL LETTER. The note Kalarel writes to Ninaran can be recovered after the “Dead Walk” interlude. It mentions the keep.

CLUE 3: SIR CALIBAN. Perrien’s father, the banished knight Sir Caliban, journeyed to the keep and was killed there. (Bairwin Wildarson can tell them this.)

Continued…

Urgh.

On Friday evening I came home from our final tech rehearsal for Richard II. Long story short, about fifteen minutes later my main computer had completely crapped out on me.

I still haven’t managed to actually figure out what went wrong. The initial symptoms were a severe system slow down — I would wiggle the mouse and, half a minute later, the cursor would move on the screen. Ditto for keyboard input. Eventually I was forced to power the computer down. When I tried to bring the computer back up, it wouldn’t boot up.

I futzed around for a bit and eventually the computer did boot up (although not as a result of anything I had actually done). However, two of my five hard drives had gone missing in action: The C, E, and G drives were showing up. The D and F drives were gone.

This was bad news. My D drive is where I keep all of my creative files. I do regular back-ups, but — predictably — the crash had happened only a couple days before my next scheduled backup (which meant the potential loss of data was about as bad as it could be and I was faced with the prospect of trying to reproduce about a hundred hours of work).

However, the fact that two hard drives had simultaneously disappeared — along with detection delays during the boot-up sequence — left me with some hope that the real culprit was a bad hard drive controller. (Althogh that would mean that my motherboard was fried and the computer was seriously screwed, that type of loss is just a matter of money. Lost creativity can never be regained.)

After a few more reboots, the F drive reappeared — although trying to read any data off of it proved almost impossible.

So I spent most of the weekend — when I wasn’t busy opening Richard II — backing up all the data I could off the hard drives I could still see. Then, last night, I began disassembling my main computer: Loading the hard drives into an external hard drive enclosure and trying to read them on my laptop.

That’s when things got weird. Of the five drives in my original computer, one was a SATA drive (which, if memory serves, is my original G drive). The external enclosure I was using wasn’t SATA compatible, so I wasn’t able to read that drive.

That’s not the weird part, the weird part is the other four drives: From the external enclosure I could read the C, D, and F drives. The fourth hard drive didn’t work — instead emitting a very disturbing noise and refusing to respond.

I can’t make any sense out of that: On my original box the C, E, and G drives worked. But not either the E or G drive was bad and the D and F drives (which had disappeared) were working just fine.

So my next step is to re-assemble the original computer with just the boot drive and then I’ll begin adding hard drives one by one to see what happens. (To make matters more complicated, my computer has two completely separate hard drive controllers — both on the motherboard.)

But the good news is that, with the D drive working in the external hard drive enclosure, I was able to backup all of my creative files. Nothing was lost that can’t be replaced.

The bad news is that the only computer I can currently work on is my laptop — which was previously only setup for word processing. So, in addition to trying to rebuild my original computer (which is probably going to end with the conclusion that, at the very least, I need a new motherboard), I also need to get my laptop setup with the wide variety of programs I need to continue doing my creative work.

For example, I didn’t have an HTML editor or an FTP program installed on the laptop… which made updating this website rather difficult. (Obviously, this has now been solved.)

My next goal is to get the suite of software I use for Dream Machine Productions installed — Adobe Photoshop, Dundjinni, and Quark. And I need to figure out how I’m going to hook the laptop up to a color-corrected monitor and mouse so that my work with some of those programs can be productive. This isn’t particularly onerous, but it is time-consuming. And until it happens, work on projects like Legends & Labyrinths and the next City Supplement have ground to a halt.

The good news is that, starting tomorrow, I’ll be able to start posting the last of the Keep on the Shadowfell remix material I was originally going to post over the weekend. I’m looking forward to finishing that up and then moving onto some playtest reports

As I mentioned back in May, I will be performing in Shakespeare & Company’s repertory season this summer. In Richard II I’ll be appearing as the traitorous Henry Bolingbroke. And in As You Like It I’ll be appearing as Oliver Du Boys, the villainous elder brother.

Both shows are being performed, along with Servant of Two Masters (which I am not appearing in), by Shakespeare & Company on their permanent outdoor stage from June 28th through August 3rd. Bring a blanket. Bring chairs. Bring a picnic basket. I understand some people are even bringing bottles of wine.

FUN FACTS

Stu Naber, who’s playing Mowbray in Richard II and directing As You Like It, killed me onstage in Theater in the Round’s production of Henry V. In Richard II, we’re reprising the locking of our swords with a massive duel that roams all over the stage and frights the ladies in their fineries.

Richard II and As You Like It will be my third and fourth consecutive shows with Lucas Gerstner, who also appeared as Orleans in Henry V (TRP) and as Edward in The Hollow (Starting Gate). Lucas is appearing as Richard in Richard II and as Orlando du Boys in As You Like It. As Lucas notes, our theatrical relationship appears be to deteriorating. We started on the same team (the French in Henry V); then I suspected him of murder (in The Hollow); and now I’m trying to and/or killing him. This bodes ill for a 5th show.

This is the second time I’ve done As You Like It. In college I played Jacques du Boys, the youngest son of old Sir Rowland. Now I’m playing Oliver du Boys, the eldest son. So if I ever do the play again, I figure I’m a shoo-in for Orlando, the second son.

Shakespeare & Company has now become a family tradition. My mother, the historical mystery author Margaret Frazer, previously performed with Shakespeare & Company in the mid-’90s. Her Joliffe mysteries, set around a traveling theater company in 15th century England, are inspired in part by her many years as an actress.

SCHEDULE

Saturday, June 28th – Richard II
Sunday, June 29th – Richard II

Friday, July 4th – As You Like It
Saturday, July 5th – Richard II
Sunday, July 6th – As You Like It

Friday, July 11th – Servant of Two Masters
Saturday, July 12th – As You Like It
Sunday, July 13th – Servant of Two Masters

Friday, July 18th – Richard II
Saturday, July 19th – Servant of Two Masters
Sunday, July 20th – As You Like It

Friday, July 25th – As You Like It
Saturday, July 26th – Richard II
Sunday, July 27th – Servant of Two Masters

Friday, August 1st – Servant of Two Masters
Saturday, August 2nd – As You Like It
Sunday, August 3rd – Richard II

Friday and Saturday shows are at 7:00 PM. Sunday shows are at 6:00 PM.

Go to Part 1

SPOILER WARNING!

The following thoughts contain minor spoilers for Keep on the Shadowfell. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read it. And if you’re in my gaming group then you definitely shouldn’t be reading it.

THE THREE CLUE RULE

At the beginning of May I wrote a lengthy essay on the subject of scenario design and the Three Clue Rule:

For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues.

Basically, the idea is that every chokepoint in your adventure design (the points where the PCs must do X or be unable to proceed) are all potential points of failure: If the PCs fail to do X at any one of those points, the adventure will grind to a frustrated halt.

There are two ways to deal with such chokepoints: Either you can railroad your PCs through them (a “solution” that I find drastically unappealing) or you can design alternative paths through the adventure. And in my experience, designing three alternatives results in a sufficiently robust design so that the players will never find themselves clueless.

Probably the most common problem with published adventures are their chokepoints — they’re usually riddled with them, creating countless pitfalls for the DM to overcome. So the first thing I typically do when looking at a published adventure is to track the flow of the adventure: How do the PCs get from one point in the adventure to the next? Once I’ve identified the chokepoints, I’ll start designing alternative paths until I’ve satisfied the Three Clue Rule.

The flow of Keep on the Shadowfell was particularly baffling for me. For example, as the name of the adventure might suggest, the PCs are supposed to eventually go to the Keep. But there are only three ways that will happen:

(1) You can use the adventure hook which basically tells the PCs “you’re coming to Winterhaven in order to investigate the Keep”. But, if you do that, it’s very likely that the PCs might decide to ignore the kobold threat and go directly to the Keep… which is designed for higher level play and will prove rather deadly for 1st level characters.

(2) The PCs can succeed at a Religion check to identify a holy symbol of Orcus, conclude there’s a cult active in the area above and beyond the kobold tribe, and then… rewrite the adventure so that the PCs can learn that the Keep was once a site of Orcus worship without first asking a specific character about the Keep separate from the Orcus worship.

(3) The players read the title of the module and conclude that they should find out about this Keep.

Similarly, there’s encounter A4: Dragon Burial Site. As far as I can tell, the only way the PCs will ever go to the dragon burial site is if you use the “Missing Mentor” adventure hook. If you don’t use that specific hook, the PCs will never have any reason to look for Douven Stahl — which is the only reason they would ever go looking for the dragon burial site. (Which isn’t much of a loss, admittedly, since in the original adventure there is no useful information to be gained at the site.)

So these problems needed to be fixed. In addition, I had a desire to remove the CRPG-like quest-givers in Winterhaven, which meant that I would need a more robust Three Clue Rule design for the kobold sections of the adventure, too.

REVELATIONS

Although this is one of the last remix essays I’m writing for Keep on the Shadowfell, it’s actually describing the first steps I took in revising the module. And the very first step I took was to identify and list the revelations the players would need in order to move through the adventure.

First, there are three location-based revelations. The adventure basically takes place in three locations: The kobold lair; the dragon burial site; and the Keep on the Shadowfell. The PCs need to (a) identify these as places they should go; and (b) go there.

Second, there are two revelations which allow the PCs to figure out what’s going on: They need to know what the cult of Orcus is and they also need to discover the existence and purpose of Kalarel’s ritual. These revelations are less important because the adventure can continue even if the PCs aren’t entirely sure what’s going on — in other words, these aren’t actual chokepoints — but my players get a big kick out of discovering hidden lore. And, also, knowing these facts will help raise the stakes of the adventure.

Starting tomorrow I’ll break down how I applied the Three Clue Rule to each of these revelations.

Continued…