Dénouement
There wasn’t a lot to accomplish in this session, knowing it was the wind-down for the adventure. It went according to plan, for the most part. Other than the potential duel, I avoided any crunchy encounters or combat; it was mostly just narrative.
- Bearing the last session in mind, I recognized beforehand that I really “wanted” the PCs to have the conversation with the mercenary commander. It was important exposition about the world, and the political situation. I had to make some adjustments to the plan to keep from painting myself into a corner again. My chief concern was typically-aggressive PCs shooting him in the face before he got to say anything. My saving grace came in the form of his knowing they were coming—both magically, and based on Marthyn’s and other incoming soldiers’ testimonies—which led to the “white flag.” He had some magical defenses in place in case they didn’t play along.
- In the first session, I lampshaded a potential duel-challenge for the lives of the prisoners through Aidin’s exposition, but when the opportunity presented, I wasn’t going to remind Dustan’s player—it needed to be his idea. I think the exposition was too far back, though, and he had forgotten about it by this point. Plus, there was a bit of confusion regarding the commander’s capabilities based on my description—the player got the impression that the rod he was wearing was a powerful magic item, not just his “focus,” and decided it was best not to cross him. I did a fair amount of spell-related brainstorming for the duel and I didn’t get to use it. It’s too bad, but I can always save that for later.
- The council meeting in Northelderland was a second chance to get the PCs involved in politics, and set up the potential for a Patron or alternative to the Heroes’ Guild.
- Since Maykew’s player had purchased “Waygon” (the donkey) as an Ally early in the adventure, I decided those points spent would represent “trade” for its purchase from the innkeep—for example, Trading Points for Cash—but the player’s in-game choice was better, and in-character. The “llama” thing was a hilarious surprise, though—it’ll be good for some laughs in the future.
- All PCs were granted Rank 1 for free—promoted out of Initiate of the Guild. The Coins they earned will be good for future “favors” by the Guild. The original plan was to also give out a block of general-purpose CPs at the end of the adventure, but I decided, late, to defer those until the beginning of the next adventure.
- I was concerned the loot take-home would be too little, but it turned out better than I expected. Even so, it will only cover Cost of Living for a month or so (or less, for the higher Status characters). I’m still not certain how best to handle loot without having every bad guy in the realm carry his life savings in a belt-pouch. The rule-of-thumb I remember is that it should generally be enough to continue operating, covering Cost of Living and recovery of expended supplies, until the next outing.
Post-Game Player Debrief
After the adventure was over, I kept everyone online to discuss the eventual continuation of the campaign while I still had their attention.
- I wanted to shoot for a more “sandbox/hex-crawl” type of campaign, but the group seemed to lean a little less that direction—more “multiple-choice/branching-path” type, instead. Close enough.
- We’ve got potential recurrences of Aidin, Mallus the Clever, and the court of Northelderland. The players didn’t want to take advantage of the Arl’s offer of employment just yet, though that may be a thing further down the road. He can be expected to request the aid of the Company of the Bere later.
- The players also weren’t interested in “realm management” for the time being. That’s fine. I’d still like to incorporate that sort of thing eventually—get into more of the Crusader Kings stuff—but it’s not a big deal right now. They need to build up a bit first, anyway.
Side note: This adventure marks the first time in a quarter-century of my GMing that I’ve had six back-to-back sessions with no absences and no breaks. Just lucky, I guess.
See the next blog post for my overall post-adventure thoughts and lessons learned.