AC writes:
When I first picked up Waterdeep: Dragon Heist I’d already looked at some reviews and I knew the module was a bit wonky. After giving it my own read through I knew I wanted to somehow use all the villains provided and fortunately I found the Alexandrian Remix.
After many, many, MANY hours of reading and prep I started out with our game group. Up to Chapter 1 (Ch1 of the module, so 5B of the Remix) things were going well enough. Of course that’s also only the barest start of the whole thing so that’s not saying much.
Since then it’s been an unmitigated disaster.
Things got badly bogged down trying to refurbish Trollskull Manor, this was due to my attempting to introduce the party to all the faces around the neighborhood so that they’d actually be invested in the place AND so that for the investigation yet to come they’d have some folks to actually talk to that wouldn’t just be random Joe/Jane shop-owner whose been (surprise!) next door all this time.
After slogging through that I thought we’d be able to make some headway… WRONG. I made efforts to establish some timelines, throw in a couple of faction missions, then the Cassalanters introduced themselves and their “problem”, and the parades were about to occur along with the opening of the inn.
Unfortunately I guess I miscalculated what the party would do… like I suppose heroes would, as soon as they found out about the cursed children they took off at a gallop to track down Renaer, get whatever info they could from him… and they were on the verge of taking off for Neverwinter to put the screws to his father!
At that point I shut down the game session as I had no idea how the get the damn thing back on track and I’m on the verge of just giving up on it entirely. No fault of the Remix, it’s the DM to blame here.
I’m not a first time DM, I’ve been running D&D campaigns on and off for years. The last campaign I lead was the two part Horde of the Dragon Queen / Rise of Tiamat. Maybe this time I bit off more than I could chew with the Remix, maybe I expected more from our group as I was trying to give them more of a sandbox and not so much a hack ’n slash railroad. I dunno.
What I’m wondering is if anyone else has had things go so badly wrong that they got to the point where they were seriously considering just giving up.
One side note: Trying to game with everyone locked down and remote has been a huge challenge for me. I find the loss of true interaction you get from being face to face with players in the room has killed much of my ability to improvise and is a serious impediment to building up any sort of momentum on game nights. Constantly having to repeat ourselves, pausing for long moments just in case someone else is about to say something, or just straight up technical difficulties. It’s all conspiring to suck the fun out of getting together for game nights.
First, AC, you are not alone in struggling with remote gaming. I’ve had similar difficulties. Everything takes longer. Sitting at a camera is more exhausting than sitting around a table. The channels of communication between players are limited. Body language is limited. It all translates into an experience where it becomes much harder to set tone and pace.
As a long-time GM across many different systems, I have an engrained sense of what a good session “feels like.” Remote gaming seems to be just different enough to trigger a kind of uncanny valley response; even if the session was, on its own merits, a success, it just feels as if something went wrong.
Perhaps the clearest example of this is just the amount of stuff that gets done during a session. Even if you manage to avoid having any technical glitches, the constraints of the remote experience inherently mean less gets done:
- Referencing common material can be cumbersome, particularly if you’re not using a virtual tabletop or if the material in question hasn’t been integrated into the virtual tabletop. (Think of an action as simple as finding a reference in the book and handing it to another player to look at.)
- Constraints on simple physical demonstrations and body language often mean longer descriptions and explanations.
- At a physical table you can have multiple conversations happening simultaneously. This obviously doesn’t happen constantly, but having only one effective voice channel prevents side-table discussions. In combat this means the wizard and fighter can’t coordinate their attack while you’re resolving the cleric’s turn. It also means that Sarah and Chris can’t quietly figure out what they’re planning to do next while you’re running the scene with Peter spying on Heather’s date.
And so forth.
So even the simple metric of, “Did we get a good amount of stuff done in this session?” is disrupted in remote gaming. And it’s not even that the amount of stuff that you get done is actually a problem; it just feels like a problem because it’s out of sync with what years of experience have subconsciously taught you a “good session” feels like.
Something that may help is doing brief post mortems with your players: Literally just check in with them and find out how they felt the session went. You might find that it works well to do this immediately as the session ends (during the chatting and small talk after the action wraps for the night), or you might find it’s more effective to do it a couple days later by e-mail or text message. Either way, you’ll often find that your players actually really enjoyed sessions that you felt were a struggle, and I find that can help buoy my spirits. If they are having problems, turn the discussion towards solutions: Focus on what you all (as a group) could be doing (or doing differently) rather than simply moping over the rough edges. (If you’re having the initial discussion between sessions with each player separately, you may find it useful to open the next session by discussing the problems and collectively brainstorming solutions.)
But I digress. Let’s chat about where you are in your campaign.
MEANWHILE, IN NEVERWINTER…
I’m not there at the table with you, but while this may feel hopelessly messed up and out of control for you, I’m guessing the same is not true for your players.
First, let’s look at what went “wrong”… although I don’t think it’s actually wrong, per se. I would have waited to have the Casalanters approach the PCs until after the Dalakhar explosion. That way, the players would have known that the way to help the Cassalanters solve their problem (if that’s what they want to do) is by continuing their ongoing investigation.
What’s happened here is that you’ve given the players a clear screnario hook (“help the Cassalanters save their kids!”) before you’ve given them a clear way of pursuing that scenario hook. They’ve responded by creating their own way of pursuing that hook and aggressively going for it.
This is not a problem!
Okay, what’s the first thing you can do?
Go with it.
They want to put the screws on Lord Dagult. Following the principles of active play, pick up that toy (Lord Dagult) and ask yourself what the logical outcome of that would be. What would Lord Dagult’s response be?
(I mean, they’re pretty obviously not going to be able to “put the screws to him.” But when they try, what happens?)
Well, if these random blokes from Waterdeep know about the gold, then it’s more at risk than he thought! (That’s particularly true if the PCs let slip that their knowledge comes from the Cassalanters.)
But these folks also saved his son. So he might think of them as useful cat’s paws in the Grand Game? He might even warn them about the Cassalanters (“you’ve been tricked by devil worshipers!”) before offering them a heap of gold to act as HIS agents. Heck, he might even offer them ALL the gold; then the big revelation would be that Dagult doesn’t seem to think that the gold is the most important thing at stake here: It’s the Stone of Golorr itself that he prizes above all else!
“Bring me the Stone of Golorr with all its Eyes and I’ll tell you where the gold is!” he says. “Then you can give it to the Cassalanters or buy a pirate franchise in Luskan or spend it on the richest gigolos on the Sword Coast. Just bring me the damn Stone!”
If the PCs agree, then he’ll tell them to head back to Waterdeep. He’ll be sending one of his local agents to contact them. (That’s Dalakhar, of course. So, then… ka-boom.)
Alternatively, he might let some information inadvertently slip while trying to figure out what the PCs know. (“Does Manshoon know? What about the rest of the Zhentarim?”)
Or maybe it’s a total dead end and all the PCs have done is add another faction to the Grand Game as Lord Dagult floods Waterdeep with his agents.
The point is to just look at what Lord Dagult knows — not just historically, but about the state of the Grand Game right now and the PCs specifically (if anything) — and then just… let things play out. See what happens.
MEANWHILE, IN WATERDEEP…
On the other hand, an epic segue to Neverwinter may be far enough outside the intended scope of the campaign that you would prefer to avoid all that. That’s OK. Even sandboxes have borders, and Dragon Heist isn’t even a sandbox.
What you need to do here is take a step back, identify the thing the PCs need to be pointed at, and then figure out how to deflect their current vector (“Let’s go question Lord Dagult!”) towards the thing they need.
In some cases it may not be possible to do this without railroading them, in which case I think you should find a different way. But if you’re running a robust, dynamic scenario (which I would argue the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist qualifies as), you’ll often find that the PCs’ vector will end up naturally interacting with that scenario.
That’s the case here: If they’re still talking to Renaer, he can just say, “My father has a number of agents still active in Waterdeep. I know how to contact one of them. Why don’t I set up a meeting? They might be able to tell us what he’s up to.”
Renaer, of course, will then set up a meeting with Dalakhar for them. And then … ka-boom.
You’ll note that many of my solutions here are looking for ways to point the PCs back at Dalakhar so that the explosion can happen. But the other key thing to keep in mind here is that Dalakhar’s death and the fireball are only “essential” to the Remix insofar as they’re designed to be the primary hook into the Grand Game for the PCs. But in your campaign, the PCs are already hooked. So Dalakhar and the explosion are relatively non-essential.
Since the PCs are already in the Grand Game, it’s a good opportunity to review Part 7: How the Remix Works. There’s a simple checklist there for the GM to follow when running the campaign:
(1) Are the PCs looking for a lead to one of the Eyes? If yes, pick a Faction Outpost and point them at it.
(2) Did the PCs just piss off one of the Factions? If yes, pick a Faction Response Team and have them target the PCs.
(3) Are the PCs floundering and don’t know what to do next? If yes, pick a Faction Response Team and have them target the PCs. (If you’re not sure how they might target the PCs, just have them show up and try to kill them.)
Repeat until the campaign is done.
This list is really just a default algorithm for actively playing the core elements of the campaign.
If you can’t redirect to the Dalakhar assassination in some way, you’ll have to do a little extra lifting to direct the PCs to the stone itself (since their investigation of the fireball won’t lead them to the Gralhunds). But keep in mind, as described in Part 2 of the Remix, that this chain of events already has a default outcome if the PCs get involved which ends with Jarlaxle in possession of the Stone (i.e., one of the Factions that the default algorithm consistently prompts you to pick up and play with).
To come full circle: I don’t think your campaign is as “out of control” as it feels to you right now. In fact, I think your campaign is in a great place. You’ve got a group of players who are clearly heavily invested in what’s happening AND self-motivated enough to create their own plans and aggressively push for the outcomes they want. That’s FANTASTIC.
Follow their lead.
This is an experimental new series for the site. It might end up just being one-and-done. Let me know what you think of it in the comments. If you have any questions you’d like to have considered for future columns, throw those in, too. The goal here is to address specific situations from actual play; the general gist being, “If I were the GM in this situation, what would I do?” (As opposed to more abstract questions about general methodology or theorycraft.)
Also accepting commentary on my COVID beard.
I enjoyed it and would be happy to see more of these.
Good stuff! Would love to see more of these — it’s always nice to see how these things work in practice, and it helps to understand the myriad permutations of the story.
I think it’s a great idea, the series is good too 😉
I agree with the others – I would enjoy more articles like this too.
It would also be great for AC to report back after their next session or two, on whether they were able to put the advice into practice, and whether their game is back in a place where they’re happy running it again – either in the comments here, or as an official postscript on the original article.
Yes, this would be a good series.
regarding the specific situation AC questions about, there’s one more fact that can be used to discourage the PC’s from travelling outside the scope of the campaign.
Travelling to Neverwinter takes time. A quick google search estimates the journey from Waterdeep to Neverwinter to take about a tenday one way. The Cassalanters don’t have a lot of time, with the ninth birthday of their children coming up rapidly. According to the timeline laid out in https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/44335/roleplaying-games/dragon-heist-remix-addendum-timelines-starting-the-campaign there would only be two tendays between the opening of Trollskull Manor and the date of the Cassalanter feast. Can they even afford to travel to Neverwinter and back again?
Any NPC they’ll say their goodbye’s to will be sure to mention the time requirement, because of all the festivities they’ll be missing. The Cassalanters will immediately worry if they’ll make it back in time.
Also, note that the Cassalanters do have a reasonably good idea who hold the stone and each of the eyes, and can also point the PC’s in that direction.
Yeah, this is really interesting, I’d like to see more. And as someone said, would like to see how this campaign ends up!
This problem makes me think of something else I’ve been pondering, how to deal with it when there’s something I didn’t think was possible but the players don’t realise that, eg the players think “we need to break into X to rescue Y” but I’d expected them to do something else because no way can solve random adventuring team succeed at that. I think I need to come in early with “soft failures”, ie set backs that make it clear they’re out of their depth, but WITHOUT making them feel stupid or killing them (unless it’s the sort of campaign where that’s expected to happen capriciously). Ideally it wouldn’t be necessary because they’d judge the risk in advance (by asking OOC if necessary), but in practice I get scared of following through on “you did something suicidal” because the mismatch is usually we failed to communicate what is risky, rather than players being wrong. But if they get some set-backs that feel meaty, but not arbitrary, hopefully they learn what’s possible and what’s not and then I can leave them to figure it out in future.
More pls
@jack v
My own thoughts on this subject have been: it’s the GM’s responsibility to give the party enough rope, and if they hang themselves with it that’s on them. If there’s some hideous danger ahead, make sure there are three clues that let them know. Then if they go ahead anyways, let them reap as they have showed.
For instance: there’s a shoggoth in the basement. On the property, the party finds human bodies, ripped apart, half-digested, coated in slime. Inside the house, the cultist says, “We have a terrible power in the basement! Run while you can!” The door to the basement is warded by an elder sign pulsing with power.
If they still want to open the door and go down there–well, choices and their consequences are what making roleplaying roleplaying.
This series is great! I hope you do more [and I might bother you next time I run into some campaign problems 🙂 ].
Great idea for a series. It plays into your strengths. Solid beard, almost ready to be shaped into a chin-dagger.
I was motivated to try your remix, and it’s been great fun, with lots of intrigue and romance! It DOES take some serious juggling on the DM’s part, but it’s SO worth it. In my game, Jarlaxle was seeming to be a nonissue, and I was about be relieved that I could cross a villain off the list. Then, the campaign took a hard turn (as they often do) when the third level party decided to infiltrate the submarine at the behest of the dragon in the harbor. They failed to stealth past the sailors on deck, but managed to role play brilliantly into a meeting with Felrekt by posing as an amorous conquest and his friends. Below decks, though, they ran afou of the nimblewright right about the same time the mates above realized they’d been had. Of course, it was a near-TPK, with only the swashbuckling rogue/noble surviving the death rolls… the others rolled nat 1s on their rolls. What happened next, though was probably the most memorable session in my 40 years of DMing: The young Amcathra rake awoke tied to a chair, and was gobsmacked to see Jarlaxle sitting in front of him, a glass of wine in his hand, asking, “who are you and what are you doing on my submarine?” The player didn’t miss a beat, and we spent the next HOUR in intense role play, during which time the player struck a deal with Jarlaxle to not only help him get the gold (to suck up to Laeral) but also to arrange for his friends to be raised from the dead (thanks to the friendly Eilistraeen now in the city). It was brilliant!
I had to share that, but I have a question as well. I’ve decided that since there’s so much more content, I’ve opened the game up to multiple groups, like a small-scale Western Marches-style game. So far, it’s in the early stages with only two groups, but I feel confident that the remixed module can support three or four groups easily (with a segue into DotMM). Am I crazy? Can you think of any pitfalls to avoid?
@Robert: That’s fantastic! Pumping my fist in the air over here! I love it!
Re: Multiple groups. You might be crazy. 😉
1. Figure out how to handle cross-campaign continuity. What happens if Group 1 is in the middle of Manshoon’s interdimensional fortress and Group 2 decides to go there?
2. The biggest pitfall I think you have is that the campaign isn’t a sandbox. There’s only one goal: Get the gold. That may end up being really frustrating for one of the groups.
The alternative, I think, would be to strongly frame the RACE IS ON! and really emphasize that you’re not just competing with other NPCs, but with another group of real people! That could be a really awesome and unique experience even if you don’t win the race!
But I refer you back to #1. If it gets framed as a competition, it becomes even more important for that cross-continuity protocol to be clearly and objectively framed so that you can have a robust competition that feels fair to everyone involved.
Just wanted to join the “I liked it and would read more” pile.
This is excellent – love to see more.
Add me to the “More of this please!” pile. Also the quarantine beard gives you a wise-sage look in my opinion, so take that as you will! 😉
@Robert when I ran a sandbox open table which ended up having more ‘story’ elements than I had intended, I forced every game to start and end in town. That way you never had the issue of “But we are half way through the dungeon, will the other player characters see us? Can they steal the dungeon?” etc.
You could simply make this a you must return to your home base within the city.
I did toy with having some contrivance of an in-game reason (night time is toxic outside the city, a wizard did it..?) but in the end I just handled it out of narrative.
“You start every session in Endhome, and end every session returned to Endhome. If you only get half way through a location and have to end the session, then you better schedule another session quick before some other group gets together and takes the loot now you’ve cleared half of it!”
It went great. I had the calendar in the game follow the real world calendar for simplification… which did lead to some slight oddities, such as someone asking for help and being ignored for two months.
My recommendation would be to let things sit at the status quo until interacted with, and quickly fall into new status quo if touched then ignored – otherwise you will have dozens of spinning plates.
Also I agree with Justin, you are probably crazy to try this in Waterdeep!
Yes, excellent article.
A specific value is seeing other people’s take on your output. For example AC seems to still have the “run the gauntlet through all possible interactions in the favoured direction” intent, but “make it more dynamic”. It just doesn’t quite get the idea of shaping the terrain and let the ball roll over it, probably hitting the grooves but sometimes jumping a ridge.
I wonder what tools AC is using to track the state of the campaign, such as adversary rosters and the like? When I looked at the remix my first thought was to create a nested adversary roster, with a high level one with its own campaign status log, and strong point form notes about motivations.
My thought when reading this was that the fireball could be a great way to get the campaign “back on track” by giving the PCs another, more immediate lead to follow — the proverbial man with a gun bursting through the door. (Of course, if they don’t take the bait, it wouldn’t do to force the issue.) I’m not personally familiar with Dragon Heist beyond what I’ve read here and in reviews, but I don’t imagine it would be too hard to find an excuse for Dalakhar to seek out the PCs.
“Dagult doesn’t seem to think that the gold is the most important thing at stake here: It’s the Stone of Golorr itself that he prizes above all else!”
I thought the stone’s value was as a key to the location of the vault. Is this just a bluff (i.e. Dagult plans to double-cross the PCs and take the gold for himself once they deliver the stone to him), or does the stone have some other use?
@Wyvern the stone has incredibly powerful effects, far out-valuing the gold. It’s the real prize once you realise its power (in the Remix at least!).
Long time relatively lurking patreon here. Very interesting read.
I have a somewhat unrelated question. Is there a pdf file of the complete Remix in patreon and how do I find it? I find it a bit difficult to prepare and run the game with half a dozen of tabs open and would love to have them on a single file (and maybe print it).
We are 5 sessions in, only 3 battles and my players think it’s their best campaign ever. Took quite some time to set up and foreshadow the background and factions but tottaly worth it as the whole thing lives and breathes. Preparing for the first heist in Gralhund villa now.
Keep up the great work!
This was really helpful. We’re still in the rebuilding Trollskull Manor and going on faction missions phase. My characters are way over-powered, all 6th or 7th level. So the purpose of the faction missions is a bit different. This is just my way of introducing them to all the cool stuff in Waterdeep.
(We spent most of our campaign in Icewind Dale. Running a very modified version of Storm King’s Thunder. I’m using Dragon Heist as a side-quest to SKT.)
One new thing I’ve done is had the players recruited to heist the eye for the Cassalaners from the tomb. They’re actually acting as the security detail for the Black Viper.
Oh, and the Covid beard is fantastic.
I have two questions. The first – How do you submit a question to “Ask the Alexandrian”?
Second – my actual question – How do you run a “montage” sequence to quickly go past an particular endeavor that will make it fun without it being an expository spew “You have to do this and this and this…and 2 months later you get…”?
Like 🙂