Go to Part 1

One of the first elements I established for the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist was to have the Cassalanters approach the PCs and attempt to recruit them as their agents in the Grand Game: I found the story of their children’s plight very compelling, and the entire situation rife with incredibly tough and emotional decisions that I felt would really elevate the campaign if they were put center stage. (Whereas in a traditional run, even with the Cassalanters as the DM’s chosen villain, it’s very likely that the PCs will never even discover what the Cassalanters’ true motives are.)

But what if we went a different way?

There are four rival factions in Dragon Heist, of which the Cassalanters are only one. If it’s interesting to swap the Cassalanters’ approach from open antagonism to would-be collaborators, what might happen if one of the other factions took the same approach?

Of course, none of the other rivals have innocent children for the PCs to be called upon to save. So their approach to collaboration will look a little different.

MANSHOON’S ULTIMATUM

The timing of Manshoon’s approach can be identical to the Cassalanters (he discovers the PCs are investigating the fireball that killed several of his agents and decides they would be useful pawns), but it might be better to wait until the fallout from the Gralhund Villa raids. Assuming that the PCs end up with the Stone of Golorr, Manshoon would be highly motivated to get them onboard.

His method for doing so, however, is far less discrete than the Cassalanters: He takes a hostage.

Circumstance will determine whether it will work best to find someone in a PC’s backstory or to target someone they’ve built a relationship with during the campaign, but either way the kidnapping takes place offscreen. Perhaps the PC becomes aware of it when they find their loved ones’ ransacked quarters, but more likely it takes the form of a simple letter arriving at Trollskull Manor.

The letter explains the situation simply: They have something he wants. And now he has something they want. A meeting will be arranged (to which Manshoon will send his simulacrum rather than appearing himself), and the following proposal will be made:

• Their loved one will not be harmed. Quite the contrary. They are enjoying luxurious accommodations (If only the PCs could be so lucky.) Manshoon is personally seeing to it that their every need (except freedom) is being met.
• The PCs will seek to restore the Stone of Golorr and use it to claim Neverember’s Enigma – the 500,000 golden dragons he embezzled from the city.
• Manshoon is not an unreasonable man, of course, and if the PCs fulfill their end of the bargain, not only will he free their loved one, they will also be free to keep fully 20% of the treasure.
• The Zhentarim will also make available to the PCs the full resources of their intelligence-gathering and mercenary networks.

IF THE PCs JOIN MANSHOON: The Zhentarim response teams and safe houses are put at their disposal, with more and more resources being made available as they prove themselves more trustworthy. All of Manshoon’s lieutenants can be played as allies, and this extra muscle will certainly free the PCs up to try more daring (or, at least, direct) heists to obtain the missing eyes.

IF THE PCs REFUSE: Manshoon shakes his head sadly. Then he leaves, has their loved one murdered, and dumps the corpse on the front step of Trollskull Manor.

IF THE PCs SEEK TO RESCUE THE HOSTAGE: A heist! I love heists. The hostage is being held in Area E11 of Manshoon’s Extradimensional Sanctum. The Zhents who made their quarters there have been turned out for the moment; consider spreading them out between Kolat Towers and the Zhentarim faction outposts.

JARLAXLE’S ALLIANCE

For Jarlaxle, we’ll move in the opposite direction: When running the opening scene of the campaign at the Yawning Portal, instead of using Step 2: Friendly Faces (in which the PCs pick one of the NPCs on p. 221 of Dragon Heist to be the contact they’ve come to meet), the contact they’re meeting with is, in fact, Jarlaxle.

Depending on the approach you want to take, they might think they’re meeting with “Captain Zord” or they might know the true identity of who they’re meeting. Either way, Jarlaxle does, in fact, connect them with Volo.

This means, of course, that the PCs are members of Bregan D’Aerthe from the very beginning. Refer to the general information on p. 14-15 of Dragon Heist and the faction missions on p. 34-35.

INVERTED NIMBLEWRIGHT INVESTIGATION: If you want to radically shift Chapter 2 of the campaign, then have one of the PCs’ jobs be to sell the nimblewrights for Jarlaxle. One of the reasons Jarlaxle wanted to get on Volo’s good side was so that Volo could help make introductions to various guilds, nobles, and other highly-placed and influential people. Refer to the list of owners in Part 5C: The Nimblewright Investigation as a resource for the prospective clients Volo refers them to.

Whether the PCs are selling nimblewrights or not, they still have Trollskull Manor as a reward from Volo. Jarlaxle will help bankroll the renovation costs and is eager to develop it as a safehouse for Bregan D’Aerthe operatives.

The fireball explosion also still happens on schedule: When the PCs discover that a nimblewright is involved, they can either go to Jarlaxle and clue their whole organization into the Grand Game. Or it’s possible that they were literally the ones who sold the nimblewright to the Gralhunds. (Small world, eh?)

THE GRAND GAME: Tracking forward, slot in the PCs everywhere that the campaign refers to Jarlaxle’s agents.

At Gralhund Villa they’re able to review nimblewright footage in Jarlaxle’s crystal ball and are then ordered to set up a surveillance post. (Maybe they even end up in Artheyn Manor, just like Fel’Rekt would in a ‘normal’ campaign.)

I recommend not having Jarlaxle accompany them on the other heists (he has a lot of other projects and a busy social calendar to attend to), but they can certainly tap Bregan D’Aerthe resources (in the form of a response team). And Jarlaxle may be able to directly feed them information (and access) to Xanathar’s Lair.

XANATHAR’S GANGSTERS

For this final collaboration we’re going to radically invert the campaign: Rather than starting the campaign at the Yawning Portal, the PCs will be gangsters working for Xanathar. Their first job? Raiding a warehouse where the Zhentarim are holding Renaer Neverember, capture Renaer themselves, and bring him to a sewer hideout where they’ll be met by Nihiloor.

Of course, they discover too late that they’ve kidnapped some fuckin’ mook named Floon Blagmaar. A total disaster. Maybe they try to double back to the warehouse, but by the time they get there, Renaer is gone and the place is swarming with watchmen. (Their first inklings that a Grand Game is happening will come from the questions Nihiloor asks ‘Renaer.’)

CHAPTER 2 – WORKING FOR THE BOSS: You need some time to pass here and, in this scenario, the PCs don’t get Trollskull Manor. Run a few faction missions that introduce them to the Xanatharian faction outposts (they get outfitted by Grinda Garloth; they struggle to figure out how to get the mechanical flying beholder working before the Twin Parades; they’re charged with running security at Terasse Estate and escorting gamblers through the dangerous tunnels to the gladiator tournaments).

Their contact person for these faction missions? Dalakhar.

CHAPTER 3 – THE TRAITOR: Then comes the day when Dalakhar vanishes. Turns out he’s betrayed the Boss and stolen something. Boss won’t say what, but it’s clearly important. The PCs need to find him.

They track him to the Inn of the Dripping Dagger. The timeline is slightly different in this version of reality, and they end up finding the letter from Kalain. They track Dalakhar to Kalain’s place, and she tells them he’s headed to some place called Trollskull Manor. (You’ll want to buff this up a bit to fully satisfy the Three Clue Rule.)

The PCs head over to Trollskull Manor. As they’re heading through the alley, a huge explosion goes off just around the corner up ahead: Rushing forward, they discover Dalakhar and a bunch of other people dead!

THE TROLLSKULL MANOR TEAM: From this point forward, the campaign more-or-less follows the normal track. Investigations will lead the PCs to Gralhund Villa; they’ll find the Zhentarim and Jarlaxle’s team watching the place.

But here’s the twist: There is a group of heroes who rescued Renaer Neverember and moved into the Trollskull Manor. And they’re doing what the PCs in a ‘normal’ Dragon Heist campaign would have been doing: The PCs likely first spot the Trollskull Manor Team at Gralhund Villa, but they’ll keep turning up:

• They raid one of Xanathar’s sewer hideouts.
• They perform a heist at Xanathar’s Lair. (Maybe the PCs can foil it. Or maybe the PCs foil their attempt, only to have Jarlaxle simultaneously steal the Eye. Guess it’s time to pursue them back to the Eyecatcher for a heist-in-kind.)
• While the PCs are trying to perform a heist at Kolat Tower, the Trollskull Manor Team is simultaneously active onsite.

And so forth. Play the heroes actively, and figure out what faction(s) they belong to and bring those into play, too.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

The cool thing here is that, once you’ve restructured the campaign components into scenarios instead of plots, you can use those components in myriad ways. These examples push that to an extreme, but it demonstrates how much flexibility this approach has and how easy it is to take material prepped in this way and actively play it in order to respond to player choice.

Compare this to the approach taken by the published campaign, which attempts to give you flexibility and ‘reusability’ by, for example, giving you three different versions of an Old Tower. But the truth is that you don’t need multiple versions of a tower in order to get different utility out of it during actual play.

The other thing I’ll point out is that in all of these collaborator scenarios – including the original remixed version with the Cassalanters – we have no idea what’s going to happen. Do they take the Cassalanters offers or refuse it? Do the Xanatharian gangsters take the money and use it to take over the organization, launching a bloody gang war in and below the streets of Waterdeep? When Jarlaxle’s agents tweak to his true identity, do they remain loyal or turn on him?

Just as the flexibility of the material allows us to reframe the presentation of the campaign, it also provides infinite variability in the actual running of the campaign, providing you (and your players) with a constant stream of surprise and wonder.

Go to Part 1

Edana and Theren took the stairs down from the orlop deck to the upper hold of the Eyecatcher. As they rounded the corner to head down to the lower hold where they knew Captain Zord’s quarters were, however, a giant spider dropped down from the ceiling and landed directly on top of Theren’s invisible back.

I didn’t see this one coming, either. Running the Eyecatcher from an adversary roster, I saw that there were four giant spiders in Area J17. Flipping open the Monster Manual to the giant spider stat block, I was surprised to discover that 5^th Edition had replaced the spider’s tremorsense from previous editions with blindsight.

Cutting here, with the spider on Theren and their stealthy infiltration of the Eyecatcher at risk, is a solid cliffhanger cut. But it also gives me a chance to regroup slightly and quickly review some rules while multitasking the other scene.

Captain Zord rode his polar bear into the midst of the crowd. “The Sea Maiden Faire has arrived!” He twirled a baton high into the air and had the bear catch in his mouth. Behind him, a giant dragon float began a low swoop over the gathered crowd.

“The baton is a little much, don’t you think?” Kittisoth said with scorn.

“What do you mean he’s behind the automatons?” Renaer asked.

And then the whole story poured out: How Captain Zord was selling nimblewrights constructed by the technomancers of Luskan and that the nimblewrights had been outfitted with clairvoyant crystals which would allow Zord to spy on anyone who owned a nimblewright using a specially attuned crystal ball.

Renaer grabbed her hand and began pulling her through the crowd. “Come on!”

Kittisoth grinned. “I’ll bet you knew something like this would happen when you asked me here tonight.”

“It’s always exciting with you, my dear!”

Meanwhile, back on the Eyecatcher, Theren and Edana had managed to fight the spiders off long enough to run down the stairs and into Zord’s cabin, slamming the door shut behind them. The heavy scent of lavender hung thick in the air as the spiders slammed into the door behind them.

The lavender here is a very clever bit of keyed foreshadowing that’s built into Dragon Heist. You’ll see how it pays off in a little bit, and it’s one of the many places in the campaign where Perkins, Haeck, Introcaso, Lee, and Sernett show an excellent attention to detail that truly elevates the material.

Leaving the fair behind them (as Zord, with another wave of his baton, sent a volley of fireworks into the sky), Renaer led Kitti up to a staff-wielding woman in the crowd.

“Kitti, this is Vajra. Vajra, Kitti. Tell her what you told me.”

And the story spilled out again.

This event is being driven from character action, but it’s still taking place within the party planning structure: Vajra is on the guest list. A PC has had an interaction with her. So I put a checkmark next to her name.

As Kitti finished, Vajra furrowed her brow with thought. “If they’re keyed to a crystal ball, do you know where the crystal ball is located?”

“On their ship.”

At this point Edana’s player says, “Dammit, Kitti.”

“Well, I’m already this far in, right?” Kitti’s player says.

When the other players at the table not only start commenting on the action, but having sharp emotional reactions to it, you know things are working well. It may not be immediately obvious, but this is also the payoff from establishing crossovers between the scenes: Edana’s player can immediately see how this thing Kitti is doing is going to eventually snapback and impact her.

“And do you know who currently owns nimblewrights?”

“Oh,” Kittisoth said. “So many people.” And she began to list them: Nobles. Major guilds. Prominent citizens. Vajra’s eyes narrowed.

But before they could continue, a man with greased-back hair that tufts up around his ears mounted the stairs of the mansion. As the final volley of fireworks died away, he threw up his hands and announced loudly, “The carnival shall remain here throughout the evening! But for now, it is time for the Grand Promenade to begin!”

Once again I’m actively playing the party structure: I’m looking at my main event list and triggering the next event in sequence.

How do I know the time has come for this to happen? Mostly it’s just dramatic instinct. It felt like enough stuff had happened on the front lawn of the mansion and that it was time for a shift in scenery. From a practical standpoint, it also allowed Vajra to say:

“All right. I need to take my place in this. You get back on Renaer’s arm—” Renaer took Kitti’s arm. “We’ll meet up inside. I need to figure out the damage of… whatever this is.”

Following rules of social etiquette that Kitti didn’t understand, guests began going up the stairs and into the mansion in order of precedence. One of the first was a silver-haired elf in a scintillating blue dress that sparkled with living starlight. Kitti gave a low whistle.

“That’s Laeral Silverhand,” Renaer said. “Open Lord of Waterdeep.”

“Why didn’t you ask her?” Kitti asked.

“She intimidates me.”

“Oh. I get that,” Kitti said. “Yeah.”

And then, surprisingly early in the proceedings, Renaer was pulling her forward, up the grand stairs, and into the cavernous grand ballroom beyond, where the Grand Promenade was circling like a whirlpool into an endless spiral.

At this point I already know what Vajra is going to do, so I’m taking the opportunity of the Grand Promenade to establish who Laeral Silverhand is. That lets the next beat land in the arc that Kittisoth has abruptly transcribed more effectively than if I had waited to introduce Laeral. You can actually see that a bit with the introduction of Vajra: The player doesn’t know she’s the Blackstaff, so her introduction by Renaer doesn’t carry that weight of identity. But now I’ve set it up so that when Kitti actually meets Laeral, both player and character will get the full impact of it.

One thing to note here is that I have NOT put checkmarks next to Laeral’s name. Although Kittisoth has seen her, she hasn’t actually had a meaningful social interaction with her. So she’s still on my To Do list.

While Theren moved a heavy dresser in front of the door to stop the spiders – and anyone else the spiders attracted – from getting in, Edana started looting Zord’s cabin of its valuables.

As she transitioned to scooping up any paperwork that looked useful, Theren whipped back the fur rug on the floor and revealed a hatch they had suspected lay there. Ripping it open, they looked down a short airlock towards a second hatch.

They’d found their entrance to the submersible.

Back at Shipwright’s House, the portly man with the greased hair had mounted a stage at the far end of the room. It turned out that he was Rubino Caswell, the guildmaster. He began giving an. Incredibly. Boring. Speech.

“You have to do this every year?” Kittisoth asked.

As Rubino spoke, however, an incredibly beautiful woman in a dress of yellow silk glided over to Kittisoth and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Is this a good place to talk about an ‘explosive’ matter?”

Kittisoth glanced at her. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Then come with your comrades — your other comrades — to our villa tomorrow morning for a more… discrete discussion.”

And the woman glided away.

Renaer leaned in. “What was that all about?”

“She seems to know something about our investigation into the explosion that killed Dalakhar,” Kitti said.

Renaer frowned. “Be careful around the Cassalanters,” he warned her. That was useful. Kittisoth wouldn’t have had a clue who the woman was otherwise.

This is somewhat unusual: With Rubino’s Speech and the Cassalanters’ Approach, I am very rapidly triggering events from the main event track. Much more rapidly than I normally would. (Generally speaking, you’ll trigger an event and then let all kinds of social eddies and currents spin out from that before shaking up the status quo again with the next event.)

Why?

Because Kitti has initiated a sequence of actions here which I know is going to yank her completely off the main event track I had designed for the evening. I wasn’t entirely certain how the next scene would end, but it was quite possible it would derail the party entirely. The Cassalanters’ Approach was included as an essential hook that would come one way or another (even if Kitti had skipped the party entirely, the Cassalanters would have sought the group out through some other channel), so I wanted to drop that invitation now before the next scene took place and I potentially lost the opportunity.

Meanwhile, Theren and Edana clambered down through the airlock and into the submersible. Passing by the engine room carried them out to a main passageway: At the far end of it they could see that the front of the ship opened up into a sort of bulbous, multi-level control room. The walls of the control room were large, globular windows looking out into the blackwaters of Waterdeep Harbor.

CUT TO: Rubino was finally finishing his speech and the crowd was beginning to form little social clusters that either drifted through the ballroom or made their way back out towards the carnival displays that the Sea Maidens Faire had rapidly erected. Renaer and Kittisoth made their way through a bramble of social introductions, trying to figure out where Vajra had gotten to. They eventually spotted her opening the door to a small, private room off to one side of the ball room.

Nothing too fancy here: The same way that we’ve been looking at our guest list and main event list, I’m now looking at the zones I’ve sketched out on my location map and picking one for the next scene.

They rushed over to Vajra and through the door. Kitti was looking back over her shoulder, scanning the crowd as she entered. As Vajra shut the door behind them, she turned around and–

Standing right in front of her was Laeral Silverhand.

Oh no.

The, “Oh no,” of course, was actually spoken out loud by Kitti’s player at the table. A character’s inner monologue becoming manifest through a player’s meta-commentary on what’s happening can be really great.

“All right,” Laeral said. “What is this all about?”

And Kitti’s player said, “I tell her the thing about the thing that I’ve been telling everybody all night with my big fucking mouth.”

As she finished, Laeral said, “Bring me Captain Zord. Right. Now.” And her eyes sparked with tiny shards of blue lightning.

“Oh. Oh no,” Kittisoth babbled. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea right now, is it?”

Laeral smiled as her guard hurried out of the room. “I promise you we will not make too much of a scene.”

CUT TO: Theren and Edana cautiously made their way down the passageway and looked down into the lower level of the control room. Several gnome tinkerers were at work there, apparently overseen in their work by… a dark elf. That was no good. They cautiously backed up.

The motivation for the cut to Theren and Edana here is probably pretty obvious: The appearance of Laeral had cranked the stakes way up. Reading the room, it was clear that everyone was completely on tenterhooks waiting to see what would happen. So you cut away. You let them live in that moment for a bit.

Laeral took a seat on the far side of the room. “So who is this, Renaer?”

“I’m not really anybody,” Kittisoth demurred.

“I doubt that’s true,” Laeral said with a smirk, looking at the way Renaer’s hand was resting on Kitti’s arm.

“I’m sorry,” Kitti said. “I don’t know what to say. You’re very intimidating.”

Laeral smiled and took Kitti’s hand. “It’s all right. Everything is going to be fine. We appreciate all the hard work you’ve been doing on behalf of Waterdeep. Please, step over here for just a moment.” She reached out into midair and her hand disappeared into some sort of dimensional pocket; a moment later she drew back a decanter of brandy.

“What’s our play here?” Vajra asked while Laeral poured.

“I like shock and awe,” Laeral said. “We’re going to talk to ‘Captain Zord’ and find out exactly what game he’s playing here.”

The handle turned and the door began to open–

CUT TO:

The table literally shrieked in frustration here. Yeah. That’s when you’re doing it right. You can’t force this sort of thing and you don’t want to overplay your hand, but when the anticipation is building sharp, quick cuts will heighten it even further, so that when the moment arrives it lands with even more power.

Faced with several doors, Theren and Edana picked one at random.

At this point I asked, “Exactly how do you open the door?” This prompted them to detail with great care and specificity exactly what precautions they were taking.

This was actually irrelevant for this particular door, but it would have been relevant for any other door they had picked in that passageway. (They got very lucky with their random pick. It would be the last luck they would have for awhile.) By asking them the question regardless I (a) remove metagame anticipation if I need to ask the question for future doors (“he already asked and it wasn’t relevant, so we know this is just a routine question he asks”) and (b) build a moment of suspense that pays off even if there isn’t an ambush on the other side of the door.

As they very gently eased open the door… the scent of lavender washed over them.

And here’s the lavender scent pay-off. The players take a great deal of satisfaction in the simple act of concluding that this room must also belong to Zord.

The crystal ball was sitting on a padded cushion of black velvet on a pedestal in the middle of the cabin. They scooped it up and dropped it into their sack.

CUT BACK TO: The door opened.

Captain Zord, flanked by the two watchmen, entered the room. The watchmen remained outside, closing the door behind him.

Zord swept the hat from his head and bowed deep. “Milady Silverhand, how may I be of assistance to you?”

Laeral gave a silent hand signal to Vajra. Vajra pointed her staff at him. There was a brief purple pulse from the end of the staff and Zord’s disguise spell melted away, revealing a dark elf.

At this point, my plan was to dramatically reveal Jarlaxle’s picture. But I actually fumbled retrieving the picture and wasn’t able to cleanly display it.

That was all right, though, because the lore-steeped players at my table had gotten ahead of me and did the work for me: “It’s Jarlaxle,” says one of them. “Oh no!” cries another. A third has dim memories of the Drizzt novels she read in her youth stirred up at the name.

This is pure RPG as an audience: None of the characters know who Jarlaxle is, so this is all firewalled away. But as players, they are all on the edge of their seats and completely engaged and BAM one last amazing revelation has them amped up about as high as they can possibly go.

Laeral spoke. “Jarlaxle. What do you think you’re doing?”

Jarlaxle’s eyes widened in mock innocence. “Milady, whatever do you mean?”

“Crystal balls. Nimblewrights. Explain yourself.”

“I see.” Jarlaxle was taken aback. He clearly wasn’t used to it. His eyes darted around the room, quickly taking in who was standing there. “Well… milady… as I have written to you often — and I am so glad that you have granted me an audience this evening! — my interests are simply to gain your support in seeing Luskan given its proper place in the Lords’ Alliance.”

“Do you really think that spying on me and—”

“Ah! I never spied on you! You did not receive an invitation to purchase a nimblewright, and I have taken special efforts to keep them away from you,” Jarlaxle said. “They were merely employed as an information-gathering service. And I can assure you that if any information I had obtained were to indicate a threat to Waterdeep, I would have surely—”

Laeral raised her hand to cut him off. “Jarlaxle, your tongue is as nimble and sweet as I remember. But I am not to be gulled.”

“I was attempting to gain blackmail material to further my cause as the Lord of Luskan,” Jarlaxle said plainly. “As any Lord of a City-State of the Sword Coast has an obligation to do. You yourself, I believe, employed similar tactics with your husband Khelben Arunsun on many an occasion.”

Talking to yourself as the GM is really hard to do, but having distinct characters with clear, conflicting objectives helps a lot. And when you can pull it off well it’s worth it. This moment got an audible, “Ooooo…” from the table as Jarlaxle scored a palpable hit, which was a good indication that it was time to…

CUT TO: Theren and Edana weren’t certain they could make it back through the Eyecatcher and escape. There was no telling what sort of alarm had been raised by the giant spiders they’d left behind.

They decided that their best option was to disconnect the submersible from the Eyecatcher and then swim out of the airlock. They decided that they might as well try to sink the submersible, as well, having no idea what mischief Captain Zord and the Luskans meant to use it for.

But when they opened the hatches, they discovered there was an energy field preventing the ship from flooding. “The only way this is going to work,” Theren said, “is to disable this field from the control room.”

So they snuck back down the hall together. Edana used a mage hand to reach out, grasp the lever, and—

CUT TO:

“Do you know what we do with traitorous captains in the Pirate Isles?” Kittisoth asked the room.

“I don’t,” Laeral said. “What do you do in the Pirate Isles?”

“We tie ‘em to the main mast and wait for the vultures to feast,” Kitti said.

Jarlaxle glowered at her.

“There’s interesting,” Laersal said. “I think he owns a vulture.”

“He owns a lot of sad animals,” Kittisoth said. “Just like himself. I’m sorry. I’m just sharing information. I know you’ve got this well in hand, milady.”

“I like this one, Renaer,” Laeral said. “You should keep her.”

“You can’t call me a traitor!” Jarlaxle protested. “I am not a citizen of Waterdeep. I’m a Luskan patriot.”

“I’m sorry,” Kittisoth said. “The women are talking.”

Another cool thing about this kind of scene-juggling is that it doesn’t just give you, as the GM, a chance to gather your thoughts: It also gives your players a chance to think about what their next course of action (or clever turn of phrase) will be.

Jarlaxle opened his mouth to respond, but then got a distracted look. “What are you doing, Laeral? My ships are under attack!”

Note here that Jarlaxle is basically anticipating something that hasn’t actually happened yet to the other group: He’s responding to the events that play out after Edana pulls that lever. This is a more advanced crossover technique, where you effectively foreshadow what’s going to happen to the other scene before they actually see it for themselves.

Edana pulled the lever.

Water came gushing down the passage behind them. Edana and Theren both grabbed handholds on the walls. As the water ripped into them, Edana kept her grip, but Theren couldn’t. The deluge swept him down the hall, over the railing, and slammed him down onto the deck of the control room, amidst the gnomes and the drow.

With the water still pouring down from above, Theren tried to swim out. But one of the gnomes either heard him or saw his invisible outline in the water. “Someone’s here!”

The drow waved his hand and everything in the control room was suddenly limned with the dancing green flames of faerie fire… including Theren. He surged to his feet to make a run for it, but one of the gnomes lowered his hand and—

After rolling so well all evening, the dice really turned on Theren here. After failing multiple checks to not get gushed into the control room, he now rolled a natural 1 on his saving throw vs. the burning hands spell and then I rolled max damage on 3d6. He only had 16 hit points left and so—

—the flames washed over his chest, blasting him off his feet. Blackness gripped his vision as he splashed back into the water, unconscious and at the mercy of the drow.

And that’s when I called it for the night. Always leave ’em wanting more.

Go to Part 0: Set-Up

Edana, Theren, Kora, and Pashar leave Trollskull Manor – the inn that they own – and head down to the Docks to get into position for their heist to steal Captain Zord’s crystal ball from the submersible attached to the bottom of the Eyecatcher.

They leave behind Kittisoth Ka’iter, the winged tiefling pirate who has been asked by Renaer Neverember to accompany him to the Shipwrights’ Ball. Renaer arrives in a personal carriage, dressed in practical finery and with his scarlet hair pulled back in a long plait down his back.

As Kitti steps up into the carriage, the rest of the group arrives dockside. Their plan is for Edana and Theren – one an elf of the city; the other an elf of the wilds – to go under the waves and infiltrate the Eyecatcher while Kora and Pashar provide whatever oversight they can from Dock Street.

As they’re making their final preparations, off to their right they can see there’s a lot of activity around the pier where the Sea Maidens Faire has set up. They see the carnival’s griffon take flight, signaling the start of a parade which marches off the end the pier. They’re worried for a moment that the parade will turn towards them, but instead it heads straight into the city towards Fish Street.

The dragon Zellifarn arrives, thrusting his head up out of the dock waters and plopping it down on top of the Dock Street retaining wall. “Are you ready?”

Swallowing their potions of invisibility and water breathing, Edana and Theren leapt down and grabbed on the wing-joints of the dragon. As they disappeared into the dark waters—

CUT TO: Renaer and Kitti’s carriage pulling up in front of Shipwright’s House.

Splitting the party is great. Swapping back and forth between simultaneous scenes is the easy mode for effective RPG pacing. This technique is described in more detail in The Art of Pacing, but generally speaking I’m looking to cut frequently from one set of action to the other.

You may see people express ideas similar to this as trying to “avoid players become bored” or something like that. If you’ve got a good game going, though, that generally won’t be true: The really good tables are entertaining not merely in participation but ALSO in the role of audience. In other words, if things are going well, players enjoy watching what happens in the game regardless of whether or not they’re in the current scene.

A good cut, in fact, is often about targeting that audience stance: The appeal of the cut for players not in the current scene is not primarily about them getting to act again; it’s in the suspense of wondering what happens next. When you’ve got a group firing on all cylinders and you pull it off right, you can get players wanting their scene to end because they have to know what happens next in the other scene.

And when it really works, you can get everyone at the table feeling that way all the time – not only engaged in their current scene, but driving the action forward and constantly looking forward to the next.

You can get that effect without cutting between simultaneous scenes, too. But, like I say, doing it with simultaneous scenes is the easy mode.

The carriage pulls up. Kitti looks up the long stairs toward’s Shipwright’s House: The stairs cut between the buildings facing Dock Street, leading up to the strange opulence of Shipwrights’ House where it’s nestled between the more typical dockside businesses and tenements.

Renaer took her arm and, as they began walking up the stairs, Kittisoth saw the griffon in the air off to her left. She reflected on her own encounter with one of the city’s griffon-riders a few days earlier.

The griffon is a crossover. As noted in The Art of Pacing, you want to enrich the experience of simultaneous scenes by including elements from one scene into the other. This is a very simple crossover: The PCs in Group A see the griffon leave the Docks. The PC in Group B sees the griffon flying into the city.

At this point I’m also triggering the Arrival. This is kind of a universal first beat in the party planning structure: It’s a chance to establish the geography of the event so that the players can orient themselves for the action that follows. I’ll often have the Arrival marked by some sort of big event or announcement, but in this case I don’t. This gives Kittisoth and Renaer a chance to chat with each other as they head up the stairs. Which they do, dropping a number of references to past events and in-jokes. And then…

Kittisoth had been watching the flight of the griffon. It seemed to have almost circled Shipwrights’ House and was now off to her right. “What’s with that griffon?”

Renaer looked up. “I think it’s part of the parade.”

And we CUT BACK TO Edana and Theren.

This was an effective place to cut because the players had earlier, out of character, joked that the Sea Maidens Faire parade might be going to Shipwrights’ House. So when Renaer announced that the griffon (which the group, although not Kittisoth, knew was part of the Sea Maidens Faire) was “part of the parade,” the entire group immediately realized that the crossover wasn’t just incidental; the two scenes that they had thought were going to be wholly separate affairs were, in fact, on a much more significant collision course.

So we move away from that revelation and give the audience/players a chance to really process the implications.

Meanwhile, under the Eyecatcher, Edana and Theren could now see the submersible that Zellifarn had told them about. Unfortunately, they couldn’t see any direct means of access, so they were going to have to figure out some way to infiltrate the submersible from the Eyecatcher.

Following a suggestion that Kittisoth had made, they decided to climb the anchor chain and enter the chain house. Invisible as they were, this was easily accomplished. The chain house had no immediately obvious egress, but a little exploration quickly revealed a concealed access hatch that let them out into a narrow passageway on the lower deck.

If you look at the maps of the Eyecatcher, there is no chain house. But there should be, right?

I already knew going into Dragon Heist that I was going to have to improvise around certain shortcomings from the maps. (They don’t include any windows. Windows are very important to a heist.) I had not thought about this particular absence, but this is just good advice in any case: The map is not necessarily the territory. If your players ask where the privy is, you didn’t put one on the map, but logically a privy should exist… figure out where the privy goes!

This is somewhat similar to what I discussed in “Whoops, Forgot the Wolf,” but the gist is that you’ll want to figure out how to integrate your errant chain house seamlessly. In this case I saw the compartment included for the whipstaff steerage and decided that the chain house would basically piggyback in that space.

As you can see, there’s no door there. Easy enough to add one (as it wouldn’t contradict any previous onscreen continuity), but just as easy to hypothesize that it’s actually a concealed access panel since this compartment would rarely need to be accessed.

Meanwhile, up on Dock Street, Pashar had also been watching the griffon circle towards Shipwrights’ House. He got a very bad premonition that something terrible was going to happen at the Ball, and there was little he could truly do to help here if anything went wrong on the Eyecatcher in any case. So he and Archimedes, his owl familiar, peeled off and headed towards the party to put eyes on Kitti’s date.

The other thing about cutting between scenes is that your players will often start playing through moments that don’t require your attention as the GM: While I was running the scouting and infiltration of the Eyecatcher with Edana and Theren, Pashar and Kora, who were sitting at the far end of the table, played through a detailed discussion of Pashar’s fears regarding the party and his decision to leave Kora alone.

Once again, this is great for pacing and also opens up opportunities for interactions that I, as the GM,  might have otherwise skipped over. Great stuff.

The Further Adventures of Pashar and Archimedes won’t enter into the chunk of the campaign I’m discussing here, but this did put them in position for some very funny play-by-play commentary on Kittisoth’s date with Renaer later on.

Back at Shipwrights’ House, Kitti and Renaer had circled off to one side of the large lawn that lay in front of the mansion. As they continued discussing Kitti’s recent history with griffons, a Chultan woman approached them. Renaer introduced her as Obaya Uday.

At this point, I’m letting the party begin to play itself. As I describe in Party Planning, most of this process boils down to:

• Which NPCs are talking to each other? (Consult your guest list.)
• Who might come over and join a conversation that the PCs are having? (Again, guest list.)
• What are they talking about? (Look at your topics of conversation.)

In this case I’m just looking at the guest list and pulling Obaya Uday out more or less at random. I put a checkmark next to her name, and then I look at her character write-up:

Obaya, a priest of Waukeen, has traveled from Chult to sponsor expeditions into Undermountain, with the goal of bringing its magical treasures back to her employer, the merchant prince Wakanga O’tamu of Port Nyanzaru.

(Normally I’d use the Universal NPC Roleplaying Template, but in this case I was running the party on-the-fly and so I’m just using Obaya’s write-up from the Dragon Heist book.)

What would Obaya talk about? Expeditions to Undermountain. Who’s present? Renaer. So contextualize the topic she’ll talk about to the characters who are present and…

“Have you given any thought to my proposal?” Obaya asked.

“I have,” Renaer said. “But I don’t think an expedition to Undermountain is something that my current schedule will allow for.”

And then relate it to the PCs, bringing them into the conversation (if they haven’t already injected themselves):

“You know who you should talk to?” Renaer added. “My friend here. She and her companions rescued me from Zhentarim, and they could do very well in Undermountain.”

Kitti blushed at the compliment.

Now I look at my guest list again and plan my next move while continuing to play through the current conversation. This sets me up to introduce the next element before the conversation ends. You don’t always have to do this, but it’s often more effective in a party to add a new element to an interaction rather than allowing the conversation to run its course to awkward silence.

(By the same token, you don’t want to never have a social interaction end so that the entire party just happens in one big conversation. Have NPCs excuse themselves. Give the PCs prompts to leave and engage action somewhere else. Cut away and, when you cut back, simply move past the end of the conversation and ask who they want to talk to next. But I digress.)

As Kitti and Obaya began discussing the details of Obaya’s proposal, Mirt the Moneylender circled in. Kittisoth’s friend Kora had recruited all of them into the ranks of the Harpers, and she had met Mirt as a Harper agent. It was partly on his behalf that they were attempting to shut down Captain Zord’s nimblewright operation.

Since there was no way that Kittisoth should know any of that, she wisely acted as if she had no idea who this lecherous man was and allowed herself to be introduced to him.

“I am so glad, Renaer,” Mirt declared, “that you’ve stopped chasing those thin waifs and found yourself a woman with… wings.”

Before anyone could respond to that, a trumpet sounded. Turning, Kitti saw that Captain Zord had just ridden up onto the lawn atop a polar bear. The griffon circled above. The Sea Maidens Faire had arrived.

Kitti pulled Renaer urgently off to one side and whispered fiercely. “That’s the guy with the automatons!”

CUT TO: Edana and Theren making their way through the Eyecatcher.

This is both a dramatically appropriate cliffhanger (everyone wants to know what will happen next), but also a great moment to cut away because I, as the GM, need a moment to figure out what Renaer’s response to this information is going to be.

I had, in no way, anticipated that this might be Kittisoth’s reaction to Captain Zord’s arrival. And I had no way of imagining what was about to happen as a result.

I love roleplaying games so much.

Go to Part 2

Back in 2015, I shared Game Structure: Party Planning. This is an incredibly flexible scenario structure that GMs can use to design and run large, dynamic social events without being overwhelmed by their complexity.

In getting ready to run one of these social events — whether it’s a bounty hunter trade conference, a political fundraiser, the Ilvermorny debutante ball, or a pleasure cruise to the center of a Hollow Earth on a flying ship — a GM can certainly pour a lot of prep into them. And the scenario structure is a powerful one which will reward that prep.

But I also included a quick ‘n dirty version of the structure that GMs can use with about 5 minutes of prep when they don’t have a lot of time to pour into it: If a big social soirée crops up in the middle of a session, you can call for a quick break and rapidly get your social event set up.

That’s the situation I found myself in while running Dragon Heist last weekend, and I thought it might be illuminating to walk through how it played out at the table.

(This post will contain copious spoilers for Dragon Heist.  I will do my best to make it comprehensible to those not familiar with the campaign, but check out the Alexandrian Remix if you’re feeling lost. Part 1 of the Remix alone should give you enough context to fully grok the proceedings.)

PROLOGUE TO THE OMEN COMING ON

Before we dive in, let’s take a moment to briefly establish the given circumstances of the situation.

The PCs — Kittisoth, Pashar, Kora, Edana, and Theren — had aggressively pursued their investigations into the nimblewrights which were being sold throughout Waterdeep. As such, they had (a) identified Captain Zord, the leader of a small fleet of carnival vessels based out of Luskan, as the person selling them and (b) discovered that Zord, or the Luskans he was working for, had implanted clairvoyant crystals into the nimblewrights and were using them to spy on various noble families and organizations throughout the city. They’d also made contact with a young dragon, Zellifarn, who had also been spying on Captain Zord, and could tell them that the crystal ball the clairvoyant crystals were bound to was located in a submersible underneath Zord’s flagship.

The group had also recently become invested as agents of the Harpers, and therefore felt honor bound to shut down Zord’s operation. As such, they began planning a heist to seize the crystal ball from Zord.

Largely by chance, the night they chose for their operation was Ches 25th. As noted here, this is also the night of the Shipwrights’ Ball, an event that was once a guild celebration, but which has now turned into one of the biggest social events of the Fleetswake festival season.

This is important because, elsewhere in the campaign, Kittisoth had been relentlessly flirting with Renaer Neverember (the young noble that the PCs had saved several weeks earlier). And I had decided that Renaer was going to ask Kittisoth to attend the Shipwrights’ Ball with him.

This was a great complication for the planning of their heist, so I fully embraced it.

All of which leads us up to the current situation:

• Theren and Edana, using a stockpile of invisibility and waterbreathing potions that the group had used all their resources to acquire, would infiltrate Captain Zord’s ship and steal the crystal ball.
• Pashar and Kora would provide what support they could from the shore (and be ready to step in if the shit hit the fan).
• Kittisoth would simultaneously go on a date with Renaer to the Shipwrights’ Ball.

Only problem? At least in part because I was running the campaign in big, marathon sessions, all of this had developed over the course of a single session. I didn’t have the Shipwrights’ Ball fully prepped, and I knew that — particularly with it playing out simultaneously with the Eyecatcher heist — I needed a strong structure for everything to play out to best effect.

So that’s when I called a 10 minute break, grabbed a sheet of paper, and quickly sketched out the Shipwrights’ Ball.

SET UP

The quick ‘n dirty version of party planning looks like this:

• Make a list of 3-5 places people can congregate
• Make a list of 10 characters
• Make a list of 5 events
• Make a list of 5 topics of conversation

And I basically ran straight down this list.

LOCATIONS: The Shipwrights’ Ball takes place at Shipwrights’ House. I took a few minutes to dig through the existing lore for the Shipwrights’ House hoping there would be some material to pilfer, but there wasn’t much. The House had been briefly described, a century earlier, in the City of Splendors boxed set as:

D19 Guild Hall: Shipwright’s House
2-story Class B building
HQ: Order of Master Shipwrights

As a Class B building, it’s a “larger, more successful and elaborate building,” and most likely freestanding. Briefly looking into the Order of Master Shipwrights, I discovered that in the 14th century they had been rivals with the Master Mariners’ Guild. I decided that, at some point in the last century, the Master Mariners’ Guild had been wiped out, and the Order of Master Shipwrights had grown rich indeed with a near-monopoly of shipbuilding in Waterdeep.

I stuck some Post-It flags to mark the appropriate pages in case I needed to reference this scant reference material and moved on.

On my single prep sheet, I quickly sketched out a “map” that basically looked like this:

Except, of course, sketched in pencil and with my sloppy handwriting scrawled across it.

I knew that the Bigass Staircase went down to Dock Street near Asteril’s Way (based on the 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition maps), which it turned out was surprisingly near to where I had placed the Eyecatcher (Zord’s flagship) in the previous session.

The Ballroom and Dinner Wing kind of speak for themselves. (The latter were a “wing” because I knew there would be lots of small, private dining areas and bars jutting off from the main dining hall, just in case that would be useful.) Galleon Hall was so called because it had about a half-dozen full-sized ships inside it as installation pieces. (You know that scene in Moana with all the ships in the cave? That was my visual touchstone. Except in a giant room of marble-encrusted wealth instead of a cave.) Private Rooms off to one side of the ballroom because it would give me smaller spaces for conversations to move into as necessary. And the Garden Terraces were 4-5 huge terraces jutting off the back of the building with winding paths leading through them; bioluminiscent plants would give the terraces a “Pandora from Avatar” kind of feel, and the whole complex would be hemmed in from the rest of the city by a “wall” of huge, dark, old-growth pine trees.

I didn’t write any of that down: Too time-consuming. A quick sketch-map for reference and the rough images that had been conjured up in my head were all that I needed. I had the 3-5 locations.

CHARACTERS: As I mentioned in Party Planning, “If the social event is growing organically out of game play, then you’ve probably already got the NPCs…” And that was definitely true here. Basically I just flipped through Dragon Heist and wrote down this list:

• Rubino Caswell – Guildmaster
• Renaer
• Laeral (207)
• Vajra (216)
• Jalester Silvermane (20)
• Obaya Uday (20)
• Cassalanters
• Mirt (211)
• Remalia Haventree (215)

The numbers in parentheses were page references to their write-ups. Several of these characters had already appeared in the campaign (Renaer, Jalester, Mirt) and several others I had already planned on introducing in the near future (Vajra, the Cassalanters). The only new character was the guildmaster.

As the party progressed, I would simply place a check mark next to each name as Kittisoth had an interaction with them. (It’s not that she wouldn’t be able to continue having additional interactions with them, but this helped me keep an eye on which characters I hadn’t used yet so that I could make sure that everyone got brought “onstage” at some point during the evening.)

EVENTS: At this point in the campaign, I knew that the Cassalanters needed to make contact with the PCs and invite them to a meeting at their villa. I decided this was as good a time as any for that to happen, and I quickly included that in a list that largely consisted of the Ball’s social agenda:

• Grand Promenade
• Rubino’s Speech
• Cassalanter’s Approach
• Zero-G Dancing (Vajra & Laeral)
• Dinner

I’d indicated Vajra & Laeral in parentheses because I had an image of those characters being introduced to Kittisoth while she was dancing with Renaer. (The zero-g dancing is exactly what it sounded like: A cool magical effect where everyone could literally dance their partners off their feet.) As it turned out, this is it NOT how Kittisoth ended up meeting Vajra the Blackstaff and Laeral the Open Lord of Waterdeep.

Now, honest to god, while I was planning all of this, I completely forgot that Captain Zord’s carnival was scheduled to perform a parade from their ships to the Shipwrights’ Ball! It was only after returning to the table and beginning to review my notes for the heist portion of the evening that I realized that the two events were going to feature this dramatic and unexpected crossover event.

This is one of those incredible moments of serendipity that can only really happen when you have a truly robust scenario prepared and you’re actively playing it hard for all its worth. You keep setting things in motion, and the billiard balls inevitably start colliding in amazing patterns that you never anticipated and had no way of planning.

In any case, I reached back over to my list and added “Sea Maidens Faire Parade” as the first entry.

TOPICS OF CONVERSATION: “If the social event is growing organically out of game play, then you’ve probably already got the NPCs and the topics of conversation…” This was also basically true. I quickly jotted down:

• Embezzlement [meaning Lord Dagult’s embezzlement of 500,000 dragons]
• Explosion [meaning the fireball that the PCs were investigating]
• Black Viper robberies [this had not yet come up in the campaign, but was part of my prep]

This wasn’t quite enough, though. You really want to have a range of topics that you can cycle through to keep a party alive. Also, it would be more interesting to have more topics that the PCs weren’t already aware of. AND it would be good to have some topics that weren’t directly related to the plot of the campaign. So I added two more kind of out of left field:

• Misra Tesper eloped to Daggerford (with a half-orc) [this whole thing, including Misra Tesper, was made up out of whole cloth; I pulled her last name from a list of Waterdeep noble families and I pulled her first name from the list of fantasy names that I keep on hand as a GM tool]
• Black Gold in Moonshae (extrusion of the Feydark) [meaning that a new Black Gold rush had begun in the Moonshae Isles; I’d previously pulled this really obscure reference to MOON1-3: Black Gold, a 4th Edition Living Forgotten Realms scenario, as an explanation for why a house was abandoned in Part 2: Gralhund Villa, and here I was simply flipping through the binder containing my prep notes for inspiration, saw the reference and decided to foreshadow the later development if it ever came up… which it probably wouldn’t, but it doesn’t really matter]

And that was it. I now had everything I needed to run the Shipwrights’ Ball on a single sheet of paper. As I mentioned, the whole thing took me less than 10 minutes. In fact, I’ve spent far more time explaining the whole process here than I did actually jotting down my lists at the time.

Next: Run-Time

Go to Part 1

Our time with Dragon Heist is drawing to a close. I have a few more Addendums I want to explore, and there are a number of Running the Campaign columns based on my actual play that I think are likely to provide useful insight and cool ideas. But the core of the Alexandrian Remix is complete.

When I wrote my original review of Dragon Heist in November last year, I did not anticipate that the campaign would become the central focus point of the Alexandrian for the next several months.

Even when I started writing the Alexandrian Remix of the campaign a few weeks later, I wasn’t expecting to still be writing about it in February. My rough plan was that it would run through December and wrap up. What happened?

One of the major shifts was the decision to do full adversary roster breakdowns for each heist in the campaign. This was basically essential for me actually running the campaign, and it turned out to be a great opportunity to introduce a wide swath of new GMs to these really powerful techniques. But it was also the seed which saw my original intention of more-or-less briefly saying, “Use this lair to run a heist!” grow into a much more expansive concept of breaking down the entire heist structure and showing how each lair could be fully adapted to that structure.

The Faction Outposts also outgrew their original scope. My plan had been to highlight how material from the chase sequence in Chapter 3 of the book could be repurposed, and my expectation had been that I could basically say, “Use the Autumn Version of this location.” In order to balance the number of outposts between each faction, however, I ended up adding several all-original locations to the campaign. The process of making the clue-progression of the campaign more robust also meant including significantly more material with each outpost.

For something that stuck much closer to the original spec, look at the Faction Response Teams: The Faction Outposts were supposed to look more like that, with one post for the outposts and one post for the response teams. (Although the response teams actually expanded, too, as I realized that response teams should be included for factions beyond the four villains.)

In the end, a feature that I had originally thought would be perhaps 10,000 words ended up being more than 55,000 words. Seeing this, some have suggested that my early comments that the Remix primarily represents what the campaign could have been and arguably should have been was in error. (That clearly adding all of this new material would have considerably expanded the size of the book.) I don’t think this is accurate; reshaping material (and explaining the design choices I was making) is often more costly in terms of word count.

I primarily mention this length, however, to explain why this final installment of the Remix is necessary.

You see, when the original intention was a fairly short series of a little over half a dozen posts, I decided that the best structural organization was design-oriented:

• Discuss general principles (how the factions are organized and the new, heist-oriented structure of the campaign)
• Introduce adversary rosters and a proto-heist (Gralhund Villa)
• The path from Gralhund Villa to the Eye Heists (Faction Outposts & Response Teams)
• The Eye Heists (the heist structure and the four villain lairs)
• Making the Three Clue Rule and node-based scenario design of the campaign more robust (revised revelation lists tying all of the material together)

Most of these, with the exception of the Eye Heists themselves, were visualized as being one post. In actual practice, only one of them – Gralhund Villa – actually achieved that goal, and the tail end of the series also saw feature creep (adding full remixes of both Finding Floon and the Nimblewright Investigation, plus reference timelines and faction reports).

As the length increased, the original intention became obfuscated. The material had also become more specific than originally intended, encouraging GMs to simply pick up the Alexandrian Remix and run it… except the material wasn’t actually organized for doing that. It was organized as a design discussion.

All of this created a lot of confusion and frustration, particularly as the series began attracting new readers who weren’t necessarily familiar with the Alexandrian or the discussions out of which the Remix had arisen.

RUN-TIME ORGANIZATION

As I’ve discussed these issues with people, there has been some confusion about what the distinction is between a design-oriented structure of the material and a run-time organization of the material.

Here’s what the final organization of the Remix series here at the Alexandrian looked like:

Part 1: The Villains
Part 1B: Other Factions
Part 1C: Player Character Factions
Part 2: Gralhund Villa
Part 3: Faction Outposts
Part 3B: More Faction Outposts
Part 3C: Response Teams
Part 3D: Other Response Teams
Part 4: The Eyes of the Stone
Part 4B: Bregan D’Aerthe – Sea Maidens Faire
Part 4C: Cassalanter Villa
Part 4D: Xanathar’s Lair
Part 4E: Zhentarim – Kolat Towers
Part 5: Clues and Timelines
Part 5B: Finding Floon
Part 5C: The Nimblewright Investigation
Part 5D: Backtracking Dalakhar & Kalain
Part 5E: Outpost and Lair Revelation List
Part 6: Golorr Artifacts
Part 6B: The Brandath Crypts
Part 6C: The Vault
Part 6D: Faction Reports (Gralhund/Jarlaxle)
Part 6E: Faction Reports (Cassalanter)
Part 6F: Faction Reports (Xanathar/Zhentarim)
Part 7: How the Remix Works

(To aid with navigation, this table of contents has also been added to the first post of the series now that it’s wrapping up.)

As noted, this was a design-oriented structure: I was grouping the material, and discussing the material, by the method of design. For example, the revision of the Floon investigation came almost last because it was part of the discussion about how to structure revelation lists in investigations throughout the campaign.

From a run-time perspective, of course, this makes no sense: The Floon investigation should come first because it’s the first thing that happens in the campaign, and it shouldn’t be grouped with the Nimblewright Investigation because they have virtually nothing to do with each other. So when I actually sat down to run the campaign, this was how I organized the material:

0.0 Campaign Overview
1.0 Finding Floon
2.0 Trollskull
3.0 Nimblewright Investigation
3.1 Gralhund Villa
4.1 Faction Response Teams
4.2 Faction Outposts
5.0 Heist Overview
5.1 Bregan D’Aerthe – Sea Maidens Faire
5.2 Cassalanter Estate
5.3 Xanathar’s Lair
5.4 Zhentarim – Kolat Towers
6.0 Brandath Crypts
6.1 The Vault

The difference is stark, and I suspect abundantly clear to anyone who has been reading the Alexandrian Remix.

(Patrons of the Alexandrian can find my own run-time files on Patreon as a patron-exclusive example of this.)

It should be noted that I largely don’t regret presenting the Alexandrian Remix in the way that I did: A design-oriented approach was valuable and allowed the presentation of material that would not have been possible in a run-time presentation. A run-time presentation, by its very nature, is stripped down and utilitarian, and I believe there was value in actually discussing and exploring the design choices I was making in a step-by-step fashion.

But if you’re actually looking to run the Alexandrian Remix (which I heartily recommend), you’d probably benefit from ripping it apart and putting it back together in a run-time organization. In many ways, this was always my intention: That GMs would take the Remix and then put in the work to finalize it into their own campaign.

HOW THE REMIX WORKS

To that end, allow me to wrap things up with a concise summary of the structure of the Dragon Heist campaign.

If you’re running Dragon Heist as it was published, the structure of the campaign looks like this:

This structure is lightly accented with contrapuntal Faction Missions unrelated to the core structure of the campaign, although the application of these missions is limited because the Nimblewright Investigation, Gralhund Villa, and subsequent chase sequence are likely compressed into a very limited span of time (probably 24-72 hours at most), which means that faction missions will largely occur between Finding Floon and the fireball explosion. (And, of course, the lairs are completely absent.)

If you’re using the Alexandrian Remix, on the other hand, then the macro-structure looks like this:

(click for larger version)

This macro-structure is accompanied by two strong contrapuntal elements: The Faction Missions and the Faction Response Teams. What is essentially the expansion of Act III of the campaign (the investigations culminating in the Eye Heists) also allows these contrapuntal elements to be more thoroughly interwoven with the core structure of the campaign. In other words, the PCs will be called upon to complete faction missions while continuing their ongoing investigation into Neverember’s Enigma, thus complicating the action and possibly requiring them to make some tough choices.

(It can also be argued that the event timeline of the Fleetswake & Waukeentide festivals also constitutes a third weak contrapuntal element.)

It should be noted that the distribution of clues throughout the Alexandrian Remix will belie the straight, parallel lines of investigation implied by the diagram above. For example, here’s what a tiny selection of possible investigatory paths looks like in detail:

But in terms of actually running the campaign, it’s the macro-structure you need to pay attention to: The PCs investigate a villainous faction. You point them at an outpost. The outpost will contain clues that point them to a lair. Performing a heist at the lair will get them the Eye in the lair. Repeat to obtain the other Eyes.

If the players are struggling, use one of the proactive elements of the campaign (their faction allies or the faction response teams) to dump a lead in their lap.

Beyond that, just follow the players’ lead and everything else will take care of itself.

A SIMPLE CHECKLIST

A number of GMs — particularly new GMs — have told me that the ideas of the Remix excite them, but they feel overwhelmed by its complexity. In practice, however, the Remix can all be boiled down into a very simple structure:

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.

A GUIDED TOUR

With all of  that in mind, let me just briefly walk you through the design-oriented posts on the website from a run-oriented perspective:

FIRST: “Finding Floon” is the beginning of the campaign. The revised “Finding Floon” investigation is Part 5B. An enhanced opening scene for the campaign is presented in Addendum: First Impressions.

SECOND: The PCs are rewarded with Trollskull Manor and are recruited into one or more factions. Spend some time allowing them to fix up their new home/business and run perhaps 1-3 faction missions. This is discussed briefly in Part 1C .

THIRD: The explosion happens. The Nimblewright Investigation which follows is covered in Part 5C and Part 5D.

FOURTH: The investigation leads them to Gralhund Villa. This scenario is given an adversary roster and other tweaks in Part 2.

FIFTH: After Gralhund Villa the PCs will either have the Stone of Golorr and need to find the Eyes (leading to the Eye Heists), or one of the factions will have obtained the Stone of Golorr and the PCs will need to find that (as an “Eye” Heist) and find the Eyes.

This is the core investigation loop: Point them at Faction Outposts (Part 3 and Part 3B) which will lead them to the Faction Lairs (Part 4).

SIXTH: With the Stone reconstituted, the PCs will be able to go to the Brandath Crypts (Part 6B) and access the Vault (Part 6C).

PROACTIVE ELEMENTS: In addition to the faction missions from the Dragon Heist book, use the Faction Response Teams (Part 3C and Part 3D) to actively bring the Grand Game to the PCs.

REFERENCE:

• Part 1: The Villains and Part 1B: Other Factions provide a high-level overview of the major players in Dragon Heist.
• Part 5: Clues and Timelines has a reference timeline and revelations pertaining to the macro-mysteries of the campaign.
• Part 5E: Outpost and Lair Revelation List has revelation lists you can use to track the primary investigation paths in detail.
• Part 6: Golorr Artifacts provides an overview of how the Stone of Golorr operates and how it can be used / has been used.

LEVELING UP

This is alluded to in various places through the Remix, but I recommend leveling up:

• After Chapter 1 (when they rescue Floon).
• After the Gralhund raid.
• After each of the heists.

There are four available heists, although the PCs may only need to do two or three of them. So the PCs will either be somewhere between 5^th and 7^th level going into the Vault. (In the case of my campaign, the PCs did all four heists, but we were on a race to the end and I forgot to have them level up. So they were 6^th level heading into the Vault.)

This means that heists done later will be easier. This seems to either provide a satisfying experience (“we’re getting better at this!”) or allows players to kick a heist they find particularly daunting or difficult down the road until they’re more powerful.

Check out Addendum: The Dragon of Dragon Heist for a detailed look at how the Vault itself can be handled.

A FOND FAREWELL

And so we come to the end of the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist.

If the Remix has brought you to the Alexandrian for the first time, I hope you’ll stick around. Not only for more Dragon Heist material (as I mentioned above, there are several addendums and Running the Campaign columns that are likely to still appear over the next few weeks), but for all the other cool stuff we do here. If you haven’t checked out Gamemastery 101, it’s a great place to take a deep dive into a lot of the material that underlies the work I’ve been doing on Dragon Heist.

If you liked what I did with this remix, you can check out a very different one with the Alexandrian Remix of Eternal Lies for the Trail of Cthulhu RPG. The Eternal Lies remix is much less about fixing the structrure of the campaign and much more about enhancing it – adding 300 + props, 150+ diorama elements, 450+ pages and 130,000+ words (including two completely new scenarios) to an already amazing campaign by Will Hindmarch, Jeff Tidball, and Jeremy Keller.

As you get your Dragon Heist remix campaigns to the table, I hope you’ll also come back here and share your own stories, tips, and modifications. Not only because I love hearing stories like that, but because I’m a big believer in GMs sharing their lore. It benefits the community and it encourages you to think deeply about your own campaigns, which is the first step towards improving your craft as a Game Master.

Good gaming, my friends!

Addendum: First Impressions
Addendum: The Twin Parades
Addendum: Fancy Props
Addendum: Other Collaborators
Addendum: A Night in Trollskull Manor
Addendum: The Dragon of Dragon Heist
Addendum: Timelines & Starting the Campaign
Addendum: The Blinded Stone

Forgotten Realms: A Textual History of the Yawning Portal

Running the Campaign: A Party at Shipwrights’ House
Running the Campaign: The Manshoon Heists
Running the Campaign: Creating the Characters
Dragon Heist: The Final Session