Problems with: - Those who - Tarry no Longer

[zedturtle]

Awesome stuff. I think you're right... if you've got player buy-in, then you can run it without issue. You've just got to get that buy-in and some folks don't like giving up control... you just have to convince them that they can still steer the raft despite having to go with the flow.

[Deadmanwalking]

My group's big problem with this adventure when we played it wasn't the railroading, that was more or less fine (the Orcs/Eagles thing seemed reasonable to us, for example). Our problem was the Hope loss in the dream.

See, we pretty much knew that the dream scenario wasn't real from the get-go (which makes it being a railroad pretty solidly in-theme), but that didn't immediately imply to us that winning wasn't an option, or that accomplishing anything was impossible, so a fair bit of Hope got spent to win in the first fight...y'know, the unwinnable one. Which sorta pissed everyone off as a bait and switch. Hope expenditures are supposed to get you something, after all and that one got us nothing with no way to know that before hand. It felt like an unfair 'Gotcha!' moment. Spending Hope later on to avoid Shadow and the like didn't feel that way, but spending Hope on something it later turned out literally didn't matter at all was super frustrating.

Our LM was reasonable when this was pointed out and ruled that defeating the Gibbet King and escaping the dream-world counted as a moment of hope/victory and got us all a point of Hope each at the end there, which made up for the losses, but it was still by far the most annoying thing about the adventure as written for us. It'd be much less troublesome/unpleasant for this as well as other reasons if the players (or characters) know that the particular situation is hopeless to start with.

[Lifstan]

So I played that scenario a few weeks ago. Here's my solution to the "railroad" issue:

I used "narrative storytelling" as soon as they were in Irime's dream.

That means I did the first fight and they were saved by the Eagles. They could feel il was railroady, but it was epic (so it was fine). But then, when they got in the town (in the dream) and the attack happened, I told them "It's a dream: you cannot win this fight. Just narrate to the group one epic action your character is doing in this fight and how he gets captured".

After that, same thing when they tried to escape the cell in Dol Guldur: "OK, you try to escape. But it's a dream, you cannot succed. Tell me how you try to escape and then how you get captured again".

The only fight we did in a non-narrative way was the fight with the Troll.

This way worked really fine. The players had fun. They understood it was a dream, and thus that they had limited agency. But they could be creative by telling fun stories about how there characters were awesome in the dream.

So that's my solution of how to play that scenario. I didn't make them believe they could succeed when they could not. It worked well for me and my group.

[Rich H]

I'll be running it soon and the players won't be using their characters in the dream but other people from that time. They'll transpose over their current Hope, Shadow, Valour and Wisdom scores; that should immediately let them know that its a dream without having the need to tell them directly but let them know that their Hope and Shadow scores could still be affected permanently. It will also let them play through the eyes of another Culture, which some of the players have wanted to try.

[uhu79]

So I played that scenario a few weeks ago. Here's my solution to the "railroad" issue:

I used "narrative storytelling" as soon as they were in Irime's dream.
...
So that's my solution of how to play that scenario. I didn't make them believe they could succeed when they could not. It worked well for me and my group.

Great suggestions! And just in time for me

[Arkat]

So I'm currently prepping Those who tarry no longer, and I'm in the process of adapting the scenario to the prior events in my campaign. This includes starting the scenario in the halls of the elven king. My players succesfully ran the Questing Beast last year and have spent the winter as the guests of Thranduil. They'll also get a chance to discover the past of Ash (se Heart of The Wild) during the dream.

But I must admit I don't understand why the first attack have to be unwinnable? Is there any other reason for this other than to make the characters meet the Eagles? The pcs in my campaign have met the eagles earlier, so I'm considering making the fight very tough, but not unwinnable. More like a mass of orcs being made weary by Irimë's ring. Very tough, but not impossible.

Are there important aspects of the scenario I'm not aware of that are lost if I do this?

[Lifstan]

Are there important aspects of the scenario I'm not aware of that are lost if I do this?

I don't think so. I think the reason for this fight is a. meet the Eagles (if you just play "Tales of Wilderland" they haven't met the Eagles yet) and b. from a thematic point of view (having hope in front of overwhelming odds). But I don't see why you couldn't change that...

[Elmoth]

We just ran the combat as a very tough one, but one that the characters could not possibly win. Lots of orcs does not mean unbreakabole morale for the orcs. The eagles just turned the potential victory or loss into a landslide for the party, but there was no reason for the combat for us to be unwinnable acording to the LM for the session (we rotate the LM position), and we were no less grateful to the eagles for saving us.