Goodman Games

Sailors of the Starless Sea. *spoilers ahead!*

I was not happy with my performance, I don't think I provided the amount of immersion I was hoping to provide. Especially with the world and the background. I told the players that they were all filthy, dirty peasants (except for the one character that rolled a noble) ala the ones in the Holy Grail movie, in a small, isolated settlement that had people disappearing in alarming numbers. I told them that the town volun-told them as a desperate last measure to save the town.

But I have all long time 3.5ed players who are jaded.

We had fun with character backgrounds, especially with trade goods and such... much merriment was had with the ditch digger and his "1lb of dirt" and the cooper and his one barrel. And then there was the Alchemist with 1lb of herbs. We rolled to see what type of herbs they were and they turned out to be peyote-like 'magic-mushrooms'.

With 0 level characters there are not really a lot of rules to worry about, but I managed to screw up the 'recover the body' rules for the first half of the session (from about 6:30PM to midnight). I forgot that unless you are only reduced to zero, not less, can you recover. That led to some characters who were at -2 HPs living when making the luck check after the battle.

So there were 12 total characters and I think so far (players just reached the shore of the "starless sea") and have only killed three. One character snapped his femur falling off the boards trying to cross the moat, one character had one of the vine horrors shoot a vine through his throat and out the back of his head. The third was run through with a spear by a beastman.

There were some notable occurrences, like one character who was weaponless after throwing his axe diving into range of a vine horror, grabbing the handaxe and one shot'ing it in a single round. Then there was another one where a character entering the tower, ran to the middle of the room immediately such that the big baddie beastman tried to jump and attack with surprise but failed to reach the character. The character turned around and critted it with an axe, knocking it out. Then the players were arguing, and roll playing over the silver torq and almost coming to blows!

I described the vine horrors and each beastman as a unique looking creature, but I don't think it really had the "make every monster new" effect I was hoping for. I also didn't have any god or potential patron involvement, I couldn't think of a way to get them into the game but I need to as all characters are going to be picking classes before/during the next session...

Hmm, I think you still messed up recover the body. I think you can only do that as a 1st level character. 0s who are reduced to 0 hps or less are just dead. And then for 1sts+, it doesn't matter if you're -50 hps, if you make the Luck check, you're still alive (somehow). Unless your Judge deems otherwise.

First off, don't worry too much about it.

Beermotor is correct; a 0-lvl character reduced to 0 hp is simply dead. OTOH, you can't do it wrong, because the rules explicitly bend to you, not the other way around.

In any event the Chaos Leviathan on the Starless Sea offers an opportunity to bring the idea of larger supernatural forces into play, as should the final encounter. When I ran the module the first time, my son had been bragging that he hadn't lost a single 0-lvl character up until the CL appeared. Make sure that, when someone is pulled beneath the surface, that you describe what they see even as they die. Not the first time - let 'em wonder a bit, and then make sure that they understand that it is potentially far worse than they expected things to be.

The second time I ran this, the group had a TPK, brought in more villagers, had a near TPK, brought in more villagers, and then failed to stop the final encounter. They really had a lot of fun, despite losing. This module involves a lot of nobodies in something that is potentially huge in terms of its consequences.

Part II should ramp things up considerably.

Well crap I still did it wrong then. I don't mind letting a 0 level recover the body at 0HPs. It seems fair. But I think I need to still put in a permanent -1 to a random physical stat each time.

For 1st level and up, I think I would not like to let it be unlimited damage. Maybe a negative limit of something like character level + stamina mod.

And I need to add some ways to interact with a god and a patron... Alchemist is a neutral character who wants to be an arcane caster, maybe some elemental patron. Will probably need a Lawful god interaction as well.

Did they find the Ring of Sezrekan? Because that's your best potential patron tie-in in the module.

You can obviously add in anything you like. A stone on the shore with a strange symbol on it that has no magical properties can nonetheless attract the attention of the being whose symbol is there. A dream-vision can occur during the final outcome of the module, during which a patron opposed to the villains can attempt to recruit a caster to his cause. Etc., etc. If you have Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between, Lavarial is a good patron for this second option.

Raven_Crowking wrote:Did they find the Ring of Sezrekan? Because that's your best potential patron tie-in in the module.

You can obviously add in anything you like. A stone on the shore with a strange symbol on it that has no magical properties can nonetheless attract the attention of the being whose symbol is there. A dream-vision can occur during the final outcome of the module, during which a patron opposed to the villains can attempt to recruit a caster to his cause. Etc., etc. If you have Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between, Lavarial is a good patron for this second option.

Nope, didn't find that. Seems too powerful anyway. I will certainly have to figure out a way to drop in patron link. Perhaps some sort of elemental water patron for a neutral wizard.

I kept the zero =s dead in my running of the adventure. After all the purpose of the funnel is PC Darwinism.

cthulhudarren wrote:

Raven_Crowking wrote:Did they find the Ring of Sezrekan? Because that's your best potential patron tie-in in the module.

You can obviously add in anything you like. A stone on the shore with a strange symbol on it that has no magical properties can nonetheless attract the attention of the being whose symbol is there. A dream-vision can occur during the final outcome of the module, during which a patron opposed to the villains can attempt to recruit a caster to his cause. Etc., etc. If you have Angels, Daemons, & Beings Between, Lavarial is a good patron for this second option.

Nope, didn't find that. Seems too powerful anyway. I will certainly have to figure out a way to drop in patron link. Perhaps some sort of elemental water patron for a neutral wizard.

In my campaign, it was found, and I have not found it too powerful. In fact, it caused the first corruption in the game.

Oh, yeah, and may I suggest keeping track of the characters who die? And how? There are all sorts of ways you can reuse them in your game. In my Through the Cotillion of Hours adventure, for example, dead PCs may be encountered again. Also, if you follow the book advice and make time a planar destination, you might sometimes bring back the dead, temporarily or permanently, ala Michael Moorcock's Count Brass.

On the matter of implicating gods or other powerful beings such as patrons, you can always drop books that include a patron spell as loot.

I like books. I think it's one of the funnest thing to find in just about any RPG game. I love the idea of finding information, as a player. And books that seem supernatural or otherwise very powerful have that mysterious feel to them that gets me rolling in RPGs. I played a few games of Call of Cthulhu over the years, and that game certainly tainted how I handle books now in my others games. Even in a gamist system such as D&D 4E, I recently introduced a demonic book that tainted the wizard PC who read it. He now hears voices in his head, and can't bear to be separated from his book. (And he also gained an interesting power and an amusing drawback.)

If you have little opportunity to drop loot, create an area somewhere, that you find fun and that the players might like exploring. I like mysterious areas where there are no monsters. If the adventure you are running takes place next to a body of water, and you are looking to include an elemental patron, you could have an old, abandonned shrine in a cavern that can be accessed at low tide (or seen during the full moon if it's a lake) that the PCs would happen upon or would learn about in town when finding an old scroll in a dusty scrollcase or a secret map on yellowed paper pinned under a table what must have been years ago and forgotten there (or perhaps the innkeeper has a story about one weird client who sat there one week past, and who was arrested by the local clergy and hanged for heresy!).

In that abandonned shrine, you can provide a fearful ambiance, with droplets of water falling from the ground up to the ceiling, an impression of oppression, mysterious sigils drawn on the wall, puddles of water that seem to be half an inch deep but wherein PCs almost drown and perhaps magical protections or traps that affect non-neutral beings such as tidle waves that roll down from the cave and wash people out of the cave, except those neutral-aligned that incredibly remain unaffected.

And there, in a hidden compartment of an old altar made from seashells, a book that somehow seems imprevious to the humid environment, together with a staff made from gnarled wood that allows the user to create water (new spell, on natural roll of 1 the user of the staff accidentally floods the area he's in!) or a white pearl encased in a seashell that charms onlookers, including the one who holds it... Unbeknownst to the PCs, a marid is trapped inside that pearl, with his own agenda for freedom and revenge...

Good luck, and most importantly: have fun!

I let players recover 0 levels too. By the way there is no such thing as -2 HP in DCC RPG.

Skyscraper wrote:On the matter of implicating gods or other powerful beings such as patrons, you can always drop books that include a patron spell as loot.

I like books. I think it's one of the funnest thing to find in just about any RPG game. I love the idea of finding information, as a player. And books that seem supernatural or otherwise very powerful have that mysterious feel to them that gets me rolling in RPGs. I played a few games of Call of Cthulhu over the years, and that game certainly tainted how I handle books now in my others games. Even in a gamist system such as D&D 4E, I recently introduced a demonic book that tainted the wizard PC who read it. He now hears voices in his head, and can't bear to be separated from his book. (And he also gained an interesting power and an amusing drawback.)

If you have little opportunity to drop loot, create an area somewhere, that you find fun and that the players might like exploring. I like mysterious areas where there are no monsters. If the adventure you are running takes place next to a body of water, and you are looking to include an elemental patron, you could have an old, abandonned shrine in a cavern that can be accessed at low tide (or seen during the full moon if it's a lake) that the PCs would happen upon or would learn about in town when finding an old scroll in a dusty scrollcase or a secret map on yellowed paper pinned under a table what must have been years ago and forgotten there (or perhaps the innkeeper has a story about one weird client who sat there one week past, and who was arrested by the local clergy and hanged for heresy!).

In that abandonned shrine, you can provide a fearful ambiance, with droplets of water falling from the ground up to the ceiling, an impression of oppression, mysterious sigils drawn on the wall, puddles of water that seem to be half an inch deep but wherein PCs almost drown and perhaps magical protections or traps that affect non-neutral beings such as tidle waves that roll down from the cave and wash people out of the cave, except those neutral-aligned that incredibly remain unaffected.

And there, in a hidden compartment of an old altar made from seashells, a book that somehow seems imprevious to the humid environment, together with a staff made from gnarled wood that allows the user to create water (new spell, on natural roll of 1 the user of the staff accidentally floods the area he's in!) or a white pearl encased in a seashell that charms onlookers, including the one who holds it... Unbeknownst to the PCs, a marid is trapped inside that pearl, with his own agenda for freedom and revenge...

Good luck, and most importantly: have fun!

Great ideas, thanks! As a matter of fact, my players are currently standing on the shores of the starless sea! I'll have to modify the map somehow to include some kind of hidden shrine on the shoreline. And perhaps a dropped holy symbol for a god in a loot pile.

Ravenheart87 wrote:I let players recover 0 levels too. By the way there is no such thing as -2 HP in DCC RPG.

Yep. It took my players a few sessions to get used to the idea that there are no negative HPs -- that all healing begins with 0.

Maybe just because my group has four healers (two clerics and a paladin and a wizard who heals everybody in a 15' radius every time he casts Color Spray), but we've found that it's too easy to rescue a fallen comrade within the 1 round / level limit. I'm thinking in my next DCC campaign I might house-rule to allow negative hit points, with additional permanent injuries at -10, and maybe some sort of "you're totally mangled" rule at -20.

oncelor wrote:I'm thinking in my next DCC campaign I might house-rule to allow negative hit points, with additional permanent injuries at -10, and maybe some sort of "you're totally mangled" rule at -20.

That sounds beyond generous. Our group is also playing in an AD&D 1st Ed. campaign, and -10 HP there = totally unrecoverable unless you have a 25,000GP scroll. Just a little perspective.

Caffiend wrote:

oncelor wrote:I'm thinking in my next DCC campaign I might house-rule to allow negative hit points, with additional permanent injuries at -10, and maybe some sort of "you're totally mangled" rule at -20.

That sounds beyond generous. Our group is also playing in an AD&D 1st Ed. campaign, and -10 HP there = totally unrecoverable unless you have a 25,000GP scroll. Just a little perspective.

I'd use the threshold of negative HPs at -[character level], perhaps modified by stamina mod.

So for example a 5th level wizard with 8 stamina death would be at -4HP : which is (-5) - (-1)