Will my Heroes ever be agble to leave Anduin Vale

[Khamul]

I have been LM for our 5 heroes, and we started out with the adventure: To Journey's End and The Eagles Eyrie, so the heroes traveled through the old forest road and to the Eagles Eyrie. After meeting the eagles they parted ways with Balin and his 2 companions. They then defeated a bandit lair south east of the Eyrie. They brought all the bandits to Beorn where they made a really good impression on the huge black bearded man. They managed to get Beorns blessings and they have now Beorns home as a Santuary. While recovering the hobbit of the party got to meet with Dodinas (I invented 2 hobbit families that are living and working at the Eastely Inn). So my heroes got on the adventure looking for Dinodas, and they did great but there are still crawling with orcs and goblins at the High Pass.

For the second time they try to leave the Vale but this time they get dragged into the Beorning conflict: Kinstrife...
...so after this they are really gonna be super interested in going back to Esgaroth and dale...finally...only to get intercepted by Legolas who tells them to guide a noldo elf to the High Pass which they know are infested with orcs and goblins. And why would Legolas trust complete strangers to guide this noble elf, and not just let the other elves deal with the orcs and guide her there himself, I guess her life is a little more importaint to guard.

I can see ifront of me Legolas telling his father what he did, We discovered a group of orcs in the forest but I handed over the job to a group of complete strangers to take Lady Irimë to the High Pass which they told me where infested with orcs and other foul creatures...

To get them to go back to the High Pass seems a little tough.

There is a Mirkwood Elf in the group so I need to make him the key to get this to work.

I have a thought of making the whole situation much more desperte where 2-3 elves had been chosen to take Irimë to the High Pass due to the raiding orc party which had Legolas think again. So Legolas is in the forest fighting these orcs while the 3 elves and Irimë are on the way for the High Pass. But they have been ambushed by a group of orc that belongs to the Gibbet King. When the heroes encounter the group the last elf protector falls by foul orc arrows so the Heroes needs to take out these last orcs. Irimë tells the heroes that she must reach the fort of Haycombe where friends from Rivendell will meet up.

What is your thoughts about this?

Another thing is that there should be a prolonged resting-time (Fellowship Phase) from a couple of weeks to half a year for every adventure but how is that possible, when the Gathering of the Five Armies are due to happen late November and they have done 3 adventures already and its late August and they need to do Those who tarry no longer AND a Darkness in the Marshes

[Beleg]

Just have the Gathering necessary for the quest take place next year, and they can spend about a year doing the other two quests

[Corvo]

(...)And why would Legolas trust complete strangers to guide this noble elf, and not just let the other elves deal with the orcs and guide her there himself, I guess her life is a little more importaint to guard.

I can see ifront of me Legolas telling his father what he did, We discovered a group of orcs in the forest but I handed over the job to a group of complete strangers to take Lady Irimë to the High Pass which they told me where infested with orcs and other foul creatures...
(...)

Yeah
Just chiming in to say I got the same problem accepting this adventure as is.
Don't know yet if I will adopt a solution like yours, or just end up rewriting the adventure from the ground up.

About the topic... I'm with Beleg. Slow down the pace, the heroes need some months to recover. Heck, they walked some hundreds miles this year, aren't they tired?

[Mytholder]

Note that it's Irime who decides that she wants the player characters to accompany her, not Legolas. He doesn't necessarily agree with her, but it's her decision.

As to why Irime picks the player characters, there are several possibilities. Maybe a foresight is upon her, and she knows the characters are destined for greatness, or maybe she knows that their youthful spirits have the best chance of resisting the Gibbet King's sorceries. Or maybe she wants to walk with mortals one last time before leaving Middle-Earth. Or maybe it's some weird Noldor mysticism that the player characters will never understand because they're not thousands of years old and never beheld the light of the Trees.

[Beleg]

some weird Noldor mysticism

Now that's an explanation I like

[Corvo]

Note that it's Irime who decides that she wants the player characters to accompany her, not Legolas. He doesn't necessarily agree with her, but it's her decision.
(...)

You are right, it's Irime's choice, not Legolas. And this is an elegant plot device.
Yet with my players, the problem is the same. They are pretty careless with their own safety, yet very prudent about risking the npc's lives, especially someone as this lady. They will say something sensible like “noble Lady, our swords are yours. Yet the Enemy strives to keep us divided. If anything befell on you, sire Thranduil will blame our people, and many woe will follow. So let us escort you along wise Legolas and these elves, so we all prevail or fail together...”

And if I have Irime press the matter, at the end of the adventure they will say something like “... we said it! Stay together! Yet no, little princess thought she knew it better, isn't it? Stupid elves, no wonder they are almost extinct...”

PS: my players are the sort of guys that, at the Council of Elrond, would have swapped Pippin for Glorfindel: "that midget is a prick! We are chased by Nazguls, we need Glorfindel! Com'on, Glor, do you want to miss all the action?"

[Khamul]

@ Corvo

My players would act like that too. They hate "Act properly stupied" (as we see in every horror movie, I shall just go down in the celler to reteive the document even that I know there is a mad killer in the house...)

They must have a good motivation to save all these people around Middle Earyth all the time.... They are starting to look like the A-Team.

[Gweinel]

As someone said above the secret is hidden in fellowship phase. I thoroughfully playing each fellowship phase planting the adventure hooks for the next sessions. For example even from the begining my elf chararacter knows Irime as someone important in the Thranduil Halls and have been "patronizing" the early adventures of that player. During the fellowship phases the relationship between these two have been deepened through roleplaying. When i ll play her adventure i would have invited the fellowship to the Thranduil's Halls and at that time Irime will declare her ultimate wish to leave Middle Earth. She ll ask the elf character and the rest of the party to accompany her and so the adventure will begin. I am doing the same, building the next adventures in the fellowship phases, with the other characters too.

[Khamul]

@ Gweinel

Thats a really good idea you have there, I think that is a way that I could pick up to get a better "flow" with the campagne. Thanks.

[SirKicley]

Or maybe she wants to walk with mortals one last time before leaving Middle-Earth. Or maybe it's some weird Noldor mysticism that the player characters will never understand because they're not thousands of years old and never beheld the light of the Trees.

I had a chuckle at this. Often times during D&D games there was always that one player that tried to over-analyze things using "Game Mechanics" to define everything and when something didn't quite match up to the black & white rules and parameters they would question why or how and be perplexed and want an explanation where none seemed forthcoming or even existing......

To which I succinctly quip:

"F*** it - it's magic!"


This caught on, and now it's a mantra among my friends. Whenever something happens now that can't easily be explained - "Fk it - it's magic!" works everytime. Even in the real world.

So if the players want to know how Irime knew to have the PCs escort her.......say it with me now....


Robert